Romans, Part 62

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As I continue to consider Rejoice in hope, endure in suffering, persist in prayer,[1] as a description of love rather than as rules to obey, I want to look at some more truth that love rejoices in along with some more ἀδικία that it does not.  What Luke called a parable (παραβολὴν, a form of παραβολή) Matthew presented as a rhetorical question in a discourse about child-rearing: If someone owns a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go look for the one that went astray?[2]

Matthew

Luke
See that you do not disdain one of these little ones.  For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.

Matthew 18:10 (NET)

 So Jesus told them this parable:

Luke 15:3 (NET)
What do you think?  If someone owns a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go look for the one that went astray?  And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he will rejoice (χαίρει, a form of χαίρω) more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray.

Matthew 18:12, 13 (NET)

 “Which one of you, if he has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, would not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go look for the one that is lost until he finds it?  Then when he has found it, he places it on his shoulders, rejoicing (χαίρων, another form of χαίρω).  Returning home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, telling them, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found my sheep that was lost.’

Luke 15:4-6 (NET)
In the same way, your Father in heaven is not willing that one of these little ones be lost.

Matthew 18:14 (NET)

 I tell you, in the same way there will be more joy (χαρὰ) in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need to repent.

Luke 15:7 (NET)

I should back up a bit and look at more of the context of Matthew’s Gospel narrative.  Jesus’ disciples had asked him, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?[3]

He called a child, had him stand among them, and said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn around and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven!  Whoever then humbles himself like this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.  And whoever welcomes a child like this in my name welcomes me.”[4]

Then He began what I am calling a discourse about child-rearing: But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a huge millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the open sea.[5]  The Greek word translated causes…to sin is σκανδαλίσῃ (a form of σκανδαλίζω).  The definition in the NET reads as follows:

1) to put a stumbling block or impediment in the way, upon which another may trip and fall, metaph. to offend 1a) to entice to sin 1b) to cause a person to begin to distrust and desert one whom he ought to trust and obey 1b1) to cause to fall away 1b2) to be offended in one, i.e. to see in another what I disapprove of and what hinders me from acknowledging his authority 1b3) to cause one to judge unfavourably or unjustly of another 1c) since one who stumbles or whose foot gets entangled feels annoyed 1c1) to cause one displeasure at a thing 1c2) to make indignant 1c3) to be displeased, indignant

It comes from σκάνδαλον a snare or trap, translated stumbling blocks in the next verse: Woe to the world because of stumbling blocks (σκανδάλων, a form of σκάνδαλον)!  It is necessary that stumbling blocks (σκάνδαλα, another form of σκάνδαλον) come, but woe to the person through whom they (σκάνδαλον) come.”[6]  The necessity (ἀνάγκη, a form of ἀναγκή) of stumbling blocks is part of the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God,[7] how God has consigned all people to disobedience so that he may show mercy to them all.[8]  As I write this my daughter is essentially a witch, a neo-pagan.  My part in her defection from Christ was a decision made during my divorce from her mother.

My children wanted to stay with me rather than their mother.  I went along with it, hoping their mother would see reason.  She called my bluff and asked for money (to which she was entitled) to leave.  My biggest concern at that moment was the family’s financial survival.  I traveled for a living and would need to hire someone to care for them while I was away.  I had no legal rights to my children.  (I married into them and hadn’t adopted them because their biological father was still living.)  And there were a few more things.

Her care for those children had saved their mother from many (though not all) misguided mistakes.  To take that from her seemed dangerous and cruel.  Add to that, I was crushed in my own soul to be rejected again by yet another woman.  I had serious doubts that I could be a single parent of two teenage children.  Did I even want to be a single parent of two teenage children?  I wanted to make movies.

I decided that I could walk away with nothing but a paycheck, start over again and still help the family financially, and my wife could not.  And so I rejected and abandoned my daughter.

I’m grateful to Stephenie Meyer, Melissa Rosenberg, Catherine Hardwicke and Kristen Stewart for giving me two hours to be a teenage girl in love.  Randy Brown, Robert Lorenz, Clint Eastwood and Amy Adams have also helped me immensely in a more didactic way.  But both “Twilight” and “Trouble with the Curve” came too late to save me from making potentially the worst decision of a lifetime of bad decisions (Matthew 18:8, 9 NET).

If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.  And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.  It is better for you to enter into life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into fiery hell.

If what I do with my hands, if where I go with my feet, if what I see with my eyes causes me to sin?

Causes you to sin has proven to be the worst of all possible translations of σκανδαλίζει (another form of σκανδαλίζω) for me.  It turns my thoughts inward to my sins.  My sins are forgiven!  Young’s Literal Translation—cause thee to stumble—allows me to see that Jesus was still talking about my real bumbling and stumbling, causing my daughter—one of those little ones who believed in Him—to sin, becoming a stumbling block to her, causing her to desert one whom she ought to trust.

Having watched her struggle through two drug-related psychotic breaks and a stroke, I agree with Jesus that it would have been better for me to kill myself.[9]  It is better for her, however, that I believe that I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.  So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God…[10]  And I continue to pray that his love, his joy, his peace, his patience, his kindness, his goodness, his faithfulness, his gentleness, and his firm control[11] are all she sees from me from now on, because if I cannot be forgiven…

And by forgiven I mean:  though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.[12]  An eternity in a fiery hell seems like overkill to me for masturbation or premarital sex or even stealing a gazillion dollars.  But if my daughter cannot be found again by the Lord Jesus, if I have condemned her to an eternity in hell, I’m not entirely convinced one eternity in one fiery hell will be sufficient for me.

And though I write like this I still have hope.  “I’ll always be here as your daughter,” she texted me as I thought and wrote about these things.  She has forgiven me, but not Jesus—not yet.  “Your sacrifice has made my education possible and I can never repay you but with love,” she texted.  Since faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word (ρήματος, a form of ῥῆμα) of God,[13] I pray that He will speak that word, “hear,” to her heart, so she will know Jesus and his Father who has given her so much more than a few dollars.  Now this is eternal life, Jesus prayed to his Father, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent.[14]

I didn’t intend this essay to be so confessional.  I intended to write about an incident in the history of Israel, when a Levite…acquired a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah.[15]  Actually, I wanted to write about what happened on their journey home, after she got angry at him and went home to her father’s house in Bethlehem in Judah,[16] after he retrieved her from there.  But in the KJV she didn’t get angry, she played the whore against him.  The note in the NET reads: “Or ‘was unfaithful to him.’ Many have understood the Hebrew verb וַתִּזְנֶה (vattizneh) as being from זָנָה (zanah, “to be a prostitute”), but it may be derived from a root meaning “to be angry; to hate” attested in Akkadian (see HALOT 275 s.v. II זנה).”

Ken Stone wrote in the Jewish Women’s Archive online:

The Hebrew text states that the woman “prostituted herself against” the Levite (19:2). Thus, it has often been assumed that she was sexually unfaithful to him. Certain Greek translations, however, state that she “became angry” with him. The latter interpretation is accepted by a number of commentators and modern English translations, including the NRSV, since the woman goes to her father’s house rather than the house of a male lover. It is also possible that the woman’s “prostitution” does not refer to literal sexual infidelity but is a sort of metaphor for the fact that she leaves her husband. The act of leaving one’s husband is quite unusual in the Hebrew Bible, and the harsh language used to describe it could result from the fact that it was viewed in a very negative light.

And though Mr. Stone mentioned “Certain Greek translations,” the Septuagint reads simply καὶ ἐπορεύθη ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ ἡ παλλακὴ αὐτοῦ (literally: “and went from him the concubine of his”).

I won’t comment about a Levite with a concubine, except to say that the Hebrew word pı̂ylegesh (פילגש), translated concubine, does not occur in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers or Deuteronomy.  It occurs in Genesis before God’s law was given and again after in Judges, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Esther, Song of Solomon and Ezekiel.  But the concubine is a foreign custom to God’s law.

The Levite and his concubine spent the night in Gibeah, in the land of the Benjamites, with an old man from the Ephraimite hill country, the place to which the Levite and his concubine were returning.  I made the following table to compare and contrast what happened next to the incident in Sodom the night before it was destroyed.

Judges, the Levite and his concubine

Genesis, Lot and the visitors
They were having a good time, when suddenly some men of the city, some good-for-nothings, surrounded the house and kept beating on the door.

Judges 19:22a (NET)

 Before they could lie down to sleep, all the men – both young and old, from every part of the city of Sodom – surrounded the house.

Genesis 19:4 (NET)

The note on good-for-nothings in the NET reads: “‘the men of the city, men, the sons of wickedness.’ The phrases are in apposition; the last phrase specifies what type of men they were. It is not certain if all the men of the city are in view, or just a group of troublemakers. In 20:5 the town leaders are implicated in the crime, suggesting that all the men of the city were involved. If so, the implication is that the entire male population of the town were good-for-nothings.”  The text is clearer regarding Sodom: Now the people of Sodom were extremely wicked rebels against the Lord (yehôvâh).[17]

Judges, the Levite and his concubine

Genesis, Lot and the visitors
They said to the old man who owned the house, “Send out the man who came to visit you so we can have sex with him.”

Judges 19:22b (NET)

 They shouted to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight?  Bring them out to us so we can have sex with them!”

Genesis 19:5 (NET)
The man who owned the house went outside and said to them, “No, my brothers!  Don’t do this wicked thing!  After all, this man is a guest in my house.  Don’t do such a disgraceful thing!

Judges 19:23 (NET)

 Lot went outside to them, shutting the door behind him.  He said, “No, my brothers!  Don’t act so wickedly!

Genesis 19:6, 7 (NET)
Here are my virgin daughter and my guest’s concubine.  I will send them out and you can abuse them and do to them whatever you like.  But don’t do such a disgraceful thing to this man!”

Judges 19:24 (NET)

 Look, I have two daughters who have never had sexual relations with a man.  Let me bring them out to you, and you can do to them whatever you please.  Only don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”

Genesis 19:8 (NET)

Chivalry as a moral code was invented much later.

Judges, the Levite and his concubine

Genesis, Lot and the visitors
The men refused to listen to him…

Judges 19:25a (NET)

 

 “Out of our way!” they cried, and “This man came to live here as a foreigner, and now he dares to judge (Septuagint: κρίσιν κρίνειν) us!  We’ll do more harm to you than to them!”  They kept pressing in on Lot until they were close enough to break down the door.

Genesis 19:9 (NET)
…so the Levite grabbed his concubine and made her go outside.

Judges 19:25b (NET)

 So the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house as they shut the door.  Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, from the youngest to the oldest, with blindness.

Genesis 19:10, 11a (NET)
They raped her and abused her all night long until morning.  They let her go at dawn.

Judges 19:25c (NET)

 The men outside wore themselves out trying to find the door.

Genesis 19:11b (NET)

The Benjamites who did this were not “godless Sodomites,” extremely wicked rebels against the Lord (yehôvâh, ליהוה), but sons of Israel living in the promised land.

Judges, the Levite and his concubine

Genesis, Lot and the visitors
The woman arrived back at daybreak and was sprawled out on the doorstep of the house where her master was staying until it became light.  When her master got up in the morning, opened the doors of the house, and went outside to start on his journey, there was the woman, his concubine, sprawled out on the doorstep of the house with her hands on the threshold.

Judges 19:26, 27 (NET)

 Then the two visitors said to Lot, “Who else do you have here?  Do you have any sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or other relatives in the city?  Get them out of this place because we are about to destroy it.  The outcry against this place is so great before the Lord (yehôvâh, יהוה) that he (yehôvâh, יהוה) has sent us to destroy it.”

Genesis 19:12, 13 (NET)

The woman was dead.  Dear God, I hope she was dead (Judges 19:29, 30 NET):

When he got home, [the Levite] took a knife, grabbed his concubine, and carved her up into twelve pieces.  Then he sent the pieces throughout Israel.  Everyone who saw the sight said, “Nothing like this has happened or been witnessed during the entire time since the Israelites left the land of Egypt!  Take careful note of it!  Discuss it and speak!”

Romans, Part 63

Back to Romans, Part 64

[1] Romans 12:12 (NET)

[2] Matthew 18:12 (NET)

[3] Matthew 18:1b (NET)

[4] Matthew 18:2-5 (NET)

[5] Matthew 18:6 (NET)

[6] Matthew 18:7 (NET)

[7] Romans 11:33a (NET)

[8] Romans 11:32 (NET)

[9] Matthew 18:6b (NET)

[10] Galatians 2:20a (NET)

[11] Galatians 5:22, 23 (NET)

[12] Isaiah 1:18b (NKJV) Table

[13] Romans 10:17 (NKJV)

[14] John 17:3 (NET)

[15] Judges 19:1b (NET)

[16] Judges 19:2a (NET)

[17] Genesis 13:13 (NET)

Romans, Part 61

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I’m continuing to look at Rejoice in hope, endure in suffering, persist in prayer,[1] as a description of love rather than as rules to obey.  I’m still focusing on the injustice (ἀδικίᾳ, a form of ἀδικία) love is not glad (or, does not rejoice)[2] about.  Two different things are revealed (ἀποκαλύπτεται, a form of ἀποκαλύπτω) in the first chapter of Romans.

Two Revelations
For the righteousness (δικαιοσύνη) of God is revealed in the gospel…

Romans 1:17a (NET)

 For the wrath (ὀργὴ, a form of ὀργή) of God is revealed from heaven…

Romans 1:18a (NET)
…from faith to faith, just as it is written, “The righteous (δίκαιος) by faith will live.”

Romans 1:17b (NET)

 …against all ungodliness and unrighteousness (ἀδικίαν, a form of ἀδικία) of people who suppress the truth by their unrighteousness (ἀδικίᾳ, a form of ἀδικία)…

Romans 1:18b (NET)

But I didn’t always think of these as two different things.  As I became an atheist, though I doubt that I actually thought through these particular verses, I believed that God’s righteousness was God’s wrath, at least it was the nexus where his righteousness impacted human beings.

I returned from atheism to a semblance of faith believing that the wrath (e.g., God’s righteousness) I had not experienced had been deferred to a later time, the end, the Revelation (Ἀποκάλυψις, a form of ἀποκάλυψις).  With this idea in mind I thought the wrath of God…revealed from heaven was some unspecified vengeance against every kind of unrighteousness (ἀδικίᾳ), wickedness, covetousness, malice.  They are rife with envy, murder, strife, deceit, hostility.  They are gossips [Table], slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, contrivers of all sorts of evil, disobedient to parents, senseless, covenant-breakers, heartless, ruthless [Table].[3]

No matter what the Scripture said I wouldn’t or couldn’t hear that God’s wrath revealed from heaven was that God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what should not be done.[4]  It was beyond my powers of comprehension that He did this so that they are filled with every kind of unrighteousness (ἀδικίᾳ), wickedness, covetousness, malice.  They are rife with envy, murder, strife, deceit, hostility.  They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, contrivers of all sorts of evil, disobedient to parents, senseless, covenant-breakers, heartless, ruthless.

As long as I refused to believe that it does not depend on human desire or exertion, but on God who shows mercy,[5] I couldn’t fathom the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God;[6] namely, that God has consigned all people to disobedience so that he may show mercy to them all.[7]  I couldn’t reason that if in his wrath He hands people over to every kind of ἀδικίᾳ, in his non-wrathful state he keeps us from that same ἀδικίᾳ.  And I didn’t perceive that the true nexus of the righteousness of God revealed in the Gospel is his love in us,[8] the love that is the fulfillment of the law,[9] the fruit of his Spirit.[10]

Half a millennium or so before Paul penned his letter to the Romans ἀδικίᾳ was a Greek goddess.  “There is also a chest made of cedar, Pausanias wrote, “with figures on it, some of ivory, some of gold, others carved out of the cedar-wood itself.  It was in this chest that Cypselus, the tyrant of Corinth, was hidden by his mother when the Bacchidae were anxious to discover him after his birth.  In gratitude for the saving of Cypselus, his descendants, Cypselids as they are called, dedicated the chest at Olympia.”[11]  Carved on the chest are the figures of a “beautiful woman…punishing an ugly one, choking her with one hand and with the other striking her with a staff.  It is Justice [δίκη] who thus treats Injustice [ἀδικίᾳ].”[12]

I’ll explore some sayings about δίκη (Dike) as a revelation of the religious mind, making no attempt to distinguish the creative reasoning of human beings from lying spirits.[13]  “Next he [Zeus] led away bright Themis (Divine Law),” Hesiod wrote, “who bare the Horai (Horae, Seasons), and Eunomia (Good Order), Dike (Justice), and blooming Eirene (Peace), who mind the works of mortal men.”[14]  “[S]he sits beside her father, Zeus the son of Kronos (Cronus), and tells him of men’s wicked heart, until the people pay for the mad folly of their princes who, evilly minded, pervert judgement and give sentence crookedly.”[15]

The latter saying sounds more like Satan the accuser than justice (Revelation 12:7-10 NET):

Then war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back.  But the dragon was not strong enough to prevail, so there was no longer any place left in heaven for him and his angels.  So that huge dragon – the ancient serpent, the one called the devil and Satan (Σατανᾶς), who deceives the whole world – was thrown down to the earth,[16] and his angels along with him.  Then I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, “The salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the ruling authority of his Christ, have now come, because the accuser (κατήγωρ, a form of κατηγορέω) of our brothers and sisters, the one who accuses (κατηγορῶν, another form of κατηγορέω) them day and night before our God, has been thrown down.”

Perhaps δίκη gives a glimpse into how Satan perceives himself.  It certainly gives me a different impression of Plato’s eulogy:  “With [Zeus],” Plato wrote in Laws, “followeth Dike (Justice), as avenger of them that fall short of the divine law; and she, again, is followed by every man who would fain be happy, cleaving to her with lowly and orderly behavior…”[17]  It sounds like a revelation of Satan’s own longing and ambition.  “To thee revenge the punishment belong, chastising every deed unjust and wrong” says the Orphic Hymn 62 to Dike.[18]  This is essentially the meaning of δίκη in the New Testament (Acts 28:3, 4 NET).

When Paul had gathered a bundle of brushwood and was putting it on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened itself on his hand.  When the local people saw the creature hanging from Paul’s hand, they said to one another, “No doubt this man is a murderer!  Although he has escaped from the sea, Justice (δίκη; KJV: vengeance) herself has not allowed him to live!”

Even when the goddess is forgotten the noun δίκη retains her meaning and purpose (2 Thessalonians 1:8-10a; Jude 1:6, 7 NET).

With flaming fire he will mete out punishment on those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.  They will undergo the penalty (δίκην, a form of δίκη; KJV: punished) of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his strength, when he comes to be glorified among his saints and admired on that day among all who have believed…

You also know that the angels who did not keep within their proper domain but abandoned their own place of residence, he has kept in eternal chains in utter darkness, locked up for the judgment of the great Day.  So also Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring towns, since they indulged in sexual immorality (ἐκπορνεύσασαι, a form of ἐκπορνεύω) and pursued unnatural desire in a way similar to these angels, are now displayed as an example by suffering the punishment (δίκην, a form of δίκη; KJV: vengeance) of eternal fire.

Philostratus tired of δίκη or the inability of vengeance to produce righteousness in, or secure justice among, human beings: “I am sure that Dike (Justice) will appear in a very ridiculous light; for having been appointed by Zeus and by the Moirai (Fates) to prevent men being unjust to one another, she has never been able to defend herself against injustice.”  In the New Testament δίκη has nothing to do with overcoming ἀδικία in human beings.  Rather, God’s mercy and his love in us through faith in Jesus’ faithfulness crucifies our ἀδικίαν (a form of ἀδικία) and resurrects our new lives into his righteousness through the death and resurrection of Jesus (Romans 7:5, 6 NET).

For when we were in the flesh, the sinful desires, aroused by the law, were active in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.  But now we have been released from the law, because we have died to what controlled us, so that we may serve in the new life of the Spirit and not under the old written code.

For this reason we also, Paul wrote the Colossians, from the day we heard about you, have not ceased praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may live worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects – bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for the display of all patience and steadfastness, joyfully giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light.  He delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son he loves…[19]

The word translated righteousness in—the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel—is δικαιοσύνη (Dikaiosyne), not a goddess but a daimona (δαίμων[20]).  “In the ancient Greek religion, daimon designates not a specific class of divine beings, but a peculiar mode of activity: it is an occult power that drives humans forward or acts against them: since daimon is the veiled countenance of divine activity, every deity can act as daimon…”[21]  The Orphic Hymn 63 says, “O blessed Dikaiosyne, mankind’s delight, the eternal friend of conduct just and right: abundant, venerable, honoured maid, to judgements pure dispensing constant aid, and conscience stable, and an upright mind…”[22]

To the religious mind Dikaiosyne merely dispenses “aid.”  Of course in the New Testament the daimon does not merely “aid” but possesses and takes control, not for anything resembling righteousness: two demon-possessed (δαιμονιζόμενοι, a form of δαιμονίζομαι) men coming from the tombs met [Jesus].  They were extremely violent, so that no one was able to pass by that way.[23]  As Jesus stepped ashore, a certain man from the town met him who was possessed[24] by demons (δαιμόνια, a form of δαιμόνιον).  For a long time this man had worn no clothes and had not lived in a house, but among the tombs.[25]

Ancient Greeks were not unaware of these phenomena, they attributed them to κακοδαίμων: “The Hellenistic Greeks divided daemons into good and evil categories: agathodaimōn (ἀγαθοδαίμων “noble spirit”), from agathós (ἀγαθός “good, brave, noble, moral, lucky, useful”), and kakódaimōn (κακοδαίμων “malevolent spirit”), from kakós (κακός “bad, evil”).”[26]  I assume this determination was made according to how well the daemons’ activities corresponded to the determiner’s own desires: the κακοδαίμων thwarted as the ἀγαθοδαίμων aided those desires.  The derivation of δαίμων is “From δαίω daiō (to distribute fortunes)” according to Strong’s Concordance.

To the religious mind Dikaiosyne dispenses “aid” to those who make pure judgments.  I’m reminded of Peter’s surprise that Cornelius summoned him because an angel appeared and told him to do so: I now truly understand that God does not show favoritism in dealing with people, but in every nation the person who fears him and does what is right is welcomed before him.[27]  That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,[28] –I have not come to call the righteous (δικαίους, a form of δίκαιος), but sinners to repentance,[29] –is a difficult truth for the religious mind to accept.

It is the truth suppressed by unrighteousness (ἀδικίᾳ).  The religious mind jealously guards its own righteousness as its own peculiar possession.  In my opinion Paul experienced a theological crisis[30] over this trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance, and we read the Holy Spirit’s solution to that crisis when we read his letter to the Romans (Romans 3:5-9 NKJV).

But if our unrighteousness (ἀδικία) demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unjust (ἄδικος) who inflicts wrath? (I speak as a man.)  Certainly not!  For then how will God judge the world?  For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?  And why not say, “Let us do evil that good may come”?—as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say. Their condemnation is just.  What then?  Are we better than they?  Not at all.  For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin.

All unrighteousness (ἀδικίᾳ) is sin…[31]  God will reward each one according to his works…wrath and anger to those who live in selfish ambition and do not obey the truth but follow unrighteousness (ἀδικίᾳ).[32]  The arrival of the lawless one will be by Satan’s working with all kinds of miracles and signs and false wonders, and with every kind of evil (ἀδικίας, another form of ἀδικία) deception directed against those who are perishing, because they found no place in their hearts for the truth so as to be saved.  Consequently God sends on them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false.  And so all of them who have not believed the truth but have delighted in evil (ἀδικίᾳ) will be condemned.[33]  

What shall we say then?  Is there injustice (ἀδικία) with God?  Absolutely not!  For he says to Moses: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”  So then, it does not depend on human desire or exertion, but on God who shows mercy.[34]

For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.  Just as you were formerly disobedient to God, but have now received mercy due to their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy.  For God has consigned all people to disobedience so that he may show mercy to them all.[35]

This gives me a fairly extensive idea of the truth love rejoices about and the ἀδικία it does not.  Love is not glad about injustice (ἀδικίᾳ), but rejoices in the truth.[36]  Do not extinguish the Spirit,[37] Paul wrote the Thessalonians.  I will suggest that the quickest way to extinguish the Spirit is to take credit for his fruit or to believe that his fruit is anything but the gift of righteousness.[38]  [W]hen the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us not by works of righteousness that we have done but on the basis of his mercy, through the washing of the new birth and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us in full measure through Jesus Christ our Savior.[39]

I’ll continue in the next essay.

Romans, Part 62

Back to Romans, Part 65

[1] Romans 12:12 (NET)

[2] 1 Corinthians 13:6 (NASB)

[3] Romans 1:29-31 (NET)

[4] Romans 1:28b (NET)

[5] Romans 9:16 (NET) Table

[6] Romans 11:33a (NET)

[7] Romans 11:32 (NET)

[8] John 17:26 (NET)

[9] Romans 13:10b (NET)

[10] Galatians 5:22, 23 (NET)

[11] Pausanias’ description of the Chest of Kypselos and other items at Olympia

[12] Pausanias’ description of the Chest of Kypselos and other items at Olympia

[13] 1 Kings 22:19-23; 2 Corinthians 4:3, 4; Ephesians 2:1-3 (NET)

[14] http://www.theoi.com/Ouranios/HoraDike.html

[15] ibid

[16] I am very confused whether this is still future are already past: Then the seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name!”  So he said to them, “I saw Satan (σατανᾶν, a form of Σατανᾶς) fall like lightning from heaven.” (Luke 10:17, 18 NET)

[17] http://www.theoi.com/Ouranios/HoraDike.html

[18] ibid

[19] Colossians 1:9-13 (NET)

[20] Then the demons (δαίμονες, a form of δαίμων) begged him, “If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs.” (Matthew 8:31 NET)

[21] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(classical_mythology)

[22] http://www.theoi.com/Daimon/Dikaiosyne.html

[23] Matthew 8:28 (NET)

[24] ἔχων [2192] δαιμόνια (literally, “had demons”)

[25] Luke 8:27 (NET)

[26] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(classical_mythology)

[27] Acts 10:34, 35 (NET)

[28] 1 Timothy 1:15 (NET)

[29] Luke 5:32 (NET)

[30] https://religiousmind.net/2012/10/07/romans-part-23/; https://religiousmind.net/2012/08/04/romans-part-7/; https://religiousmind.net/2012/06/12/pauls-religious-mind/; https://religiousmind.net/2013/04/17/romans-part-42/

[31] 1 John 5:17a (NET)

[32] Romans 2:6, 8 (NET)

[33] 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12 (NET)

[34] Romans 9:14-16 (NET)

[35] Romans 11:29-32 (NET)

[36] 1 Corinthians 13:6 (NET)

[37] 1 Thessalonians 5:19 (NET)

[38] Romans 5:17 (NET)

[39] Titus 3:4-6 (NET)

Romans, Part 60

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Rejoice in hope, endure in suffering, persist in prayer.[1]  I want to look at this as a description of love rather than as rules to obey.  To begin I’ve made the following table.

The Fruit of the Spirit

Galatians 5:22, 23 (NET)

Joy (χαρὰ)
I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be complete.

John 15:11 (NET)

 I have great confidence in you; I take great pride on your behalf.  I am filled with encouragement; I am overflowing with joy in the midst of all our suffering.

2 Corinthians 7:4 (NET)
Love (ἀγάπη) is…

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NET)

 …not glad about injustice, but rejoices in the truth.

1 Corinthians 13:6 (NET)

 

[Love] hopes all things, endures all things.

1 Corinthians 13:7b (NET)
And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he will rejoice more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray.

Matthew 18:13 (NET)

 Returning home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, telling them, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found my sheep that was lost.’

Luke 15:6 (NET)

 Set them apart in the truth; your word is truth.

John 17:17 (NET)
This Love Without Hypocrisy…

Romans 12:9-21 (NET)

 Rejoice (χαίροντες, a form of χαίρω) in hope (ἐλπίδι, a form of ἐλπίς), endure (ὑπομένοντες, a form of ὑπομένω) in suffering (θλίψει, a form of θλίψις)…

Romans 12:12a (NET)

 …persist (προσκαρτεροῦντες, a form of προσκαρτερέω) in prayer.

Romans 12:12b (NET)
So they left the council rejoicing because they had been considered worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name.

Acts 5:41 (NET) Table

 

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in him, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:13 (NET)

 But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

Mark 13:13b (NET)[2]

 

Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we may be able to comfort those experiencing any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

2 Corinthians 1:3, 4 (NET)

 They were devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

Acts 2:42 (NET)

The Greek word translated rejoice is χαίροντες (a form of χαίρω).  The aspect of the fruit of the Spirit that fulfills this rejoicing is joy (χαρὰ).  Joy (χαρά) and gladness will come to you,[3] an angel of the Lord prophesied to Zechariah the priest.  He and his wife Elizabeth did not have a child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both very old.[4]  Zechariah…your prayer has been heard, the angel said, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son; you will name him John.[5]

Clearly χαρά was used to name this ordinary joy, but I won’t spend much time on that.  I don’t have any problem rejoicing when I get my way, when I get what I want.  To rejoice in hope indicates that I rejoice prior to that time.  For the joy (χαρᾶς, a form of χαρά) set out for him [Jesus] endured (ὑπέμεινεν, a form of ὑπομένω) the cross, disregarding its shame.[6]

I’ve misunderstood this verse often enough, thinking that joy was simply a euphemism for a seat at the right hand of the throne of God.[7]  And so, enduring difficulties was a rational calculation based on faith in a given outcome (e.g., I can endure the University because in the end I will get a degree and a higher paying job).  I have no real reason to ignore faith (πίστις) here.  Faith is another aspect of the fruit of Christ’s Spirit.  But I’m not a fun guy to be around when I’m enduring difficult circumstances by faith in a rational outcome.  And I certainly won’t do any rejoicing until I get what I want.

More to the point, perhaps, a seat at the right hand of the throne of God offered Jesus no upward mobility: And now, Father, He prayed, glorify me at your side with the glory I had with you before the world was created.[8]  It was simply a matter of getting back to where He belonged, not much incentive to endure the cross, disregarding its shame.  It leads me to believe that the joy set out for him was much more than a euphemism for something else.

I have told you these things so that my joy (χαρὰ) may be in you, and your joy (χαρὰ) may be complete (πληρωθῇ, a form of πληρόω).[9]  Here is a statement, if I will hear it, that the joy set out for Jesus may be in me, and his joy will πληρωθῇ (or, fulfill) my joy.  Interestingly, this statement resides in a passage about bearing fruit (John 15:5, 7-9 NET Table).

I am the vine; you are the branches.  The one who remains in me – and I in him – bears much fruit (καρπὸν, a form of καρπός), because apart from me you can accomplish nothing…If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want, and it will be done for you.  My Father is honored by this, that you bear much fruit (καρπὸν, a form of καρπός) and show that you are my disciples.  Just as the Father has loved (ἠγάπησεν, a form of ἀγαπάω) me, I have also loved (ἠγάπησα, another form of ἀγαπάω) you; remain in my love (ἀγάπῃ, a form of ἀγάπη).

But the fruit (καρπὸς) of the Spirit is love (ἀγάπη), joy (χαρὰ), peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness (πίστις), gentleness, and self-control.  Against such things there is no law.[10]  I would love to say that I heard these words and was transformed by them.  But what I heard was, If you obey my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.[11]  And I reasoned that there was no way around it, a sinner like I am must man-up and out-Pharisee the Pharisees or burn[12] in hell for all eternity: For I tell you, unless your righteousness goes beyond that of the experts in the law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.[13]

Failing that, I heard, My commandment is this – to love (ἀγαπᾶτε, another form of ἀγαπάω) one another just as I have loved (ἠγάπησα, another form of ἀγαπάω) you.[14]  Eureka!  I found it, I thought.  A sinner like I am can’t out-Pharisee the Pharisees by trying to keep rules; a sinner like I am out-Pharisees the Pharisees by trying to love like Jesus: Love (ἀγάπη) does no wrong to a neighbor.  Therefore love (ἀγάπη) is the fulfillment (πλήρωμα) of the law.[15]

No one has greater love (ἀγάπην, a form of ἀγάπη) than this, Jesus continued, that one lays down his life for his friends.[16]  As a hypocrite I thought like an actor: I should imitate Jesus’ love.  Failing that, I began to hear again (John 15:14-17 NET).

You are my friends if you do what I command you.  I no longer call you slaves, because the slave does not understand (οἶδεν, a form of εἴδω) what his master is doing.  But I have called you friends, because I have revealed (ἐγνώρισα, a form of γνωρίζω) to you everything I heard from my Father.  You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit (καρπὸν, a form of καρπός), fruit (καρπὸς) that remains, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.  This I command you – to love (ἀγαπᾶτε, another form of ἀγαπάω) one another.

There it was again, to go and bear fruit.  Okay, if imitation isn’t the sincerest form of flattery, what do You want?  to love one another just as I have loved you.  How did You love?  I made known your name to them, Jesus prayed to his Father, and I will continue to make it known, so that the love (ἀγάπη) you have loved (ἠγάπησας, another form of ἀγαπάω) me with may be in them, and I may be in them.[17]   But the fruit (καρπὸς) of the Spirit is love (ἀγάπη)…[18]

There it was, hiding in plain sight.  It wasn’t a “modern” translation: And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.[19]  It was there from the beginning of the translation of the Bible into English.  Why was it so difficult to hear?  Why did I doubt it?  My answer to that question is the religious mind.  There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way that leads to death.[20]

I have great confidence (παρρησία, a form of παῤῥησία) in you; I take great pride (καύχησις) on your behalf, [21] Paul wrote the Corinthians.  The confidence he wrote about was a “freedom in speaking” an “unreservedness in speech,” according to the definition of παρρησία in the NET.  I think this refers to the boasting he wrote about later in the same letter: I keep boasting (καυχῶμαι, a form of καυχάομαι) to the Macedonians about this eagerness of yours, that Achaia has been ready to give since last year, and your zeal to participate has stirred up most of them.[22]

What really interests me in this context is what he wrote next:  I am filled with encouragement (παρακλήσει, a form of παράκλησις); I am overflowing with joy (χαρᾷ, a form of χαρὰ) in the midst of all our suffering (θλίψει, a form of θλίψις).[23]  So even as he was concerned whether the Corinthians’ haste would be timely enough—if any of the Macedonians should come with me and find that you are not ready to give, we would be humiliated[24]—he was overflowing with the joy set out for Jesus.  The Greek word παρακλήσει (a form of παράκλησις) translated encouragement relates to the παράκλητος as κλητός relates to κλῆσις and καλέω.  But the Advocate (παράκλητος), the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and will cause you to remember everything I said to you.[25]

Love (ἀγάπη) is not glad (χαίρει, another form of χαίρω) about injustice.[26]  I’ll spend some time here focused on the injustice (ἀδικίᾳ, a form of ἀδικία) love is not glad (or, does not rejoice)[27] about (ἐπὶ, a form of ἐπί).  The person who speaks on his own authority, Jesus said, desires to receive honor for himself; the one who desires the honor of the one who sent him is a man of integrity, and there is no unrighteousness (ἀδικία) in him.[28]  In Greek it reads, ὁ ἀφ᾿ ἑαυτοῦ λαλῶν τὴν δόξαν τὴν ἰδίαν ζητεῖ (literally, “this from himself speaks the honor his own seeks”).

I realize Jesus is the one who desires the honor of the one who sent him…a man of integrity, and there is no unrighteousness in him..  Still, I find some guidance here for Bible study.  School is easy if you seek to make good grades.  All that stuff the professor jabbers on about all semester is the answer to the questions on the tests.  Remember it, feed it back, get a good grade.  The kiss of death is to actually become interested in the subject matter.  When that happens to me I get my own ideas about the questions and their answers, and I tend to speak from myself.  In other words, I disagree with the professor’s answers to his or her own questions on tests.

The academic alternative to speaking from myself is to quote recognized authorities.  That’s how I began my Bible study adventure.  But eventually it dawned on me that the Ἰουδαίοις (a form of  Ἰουδαῖος) did that faithfully.  The problem with that procedure was that Jesus appeared and declared their recognized authorities wrong.

Matthew Mark
Then Pharisees and experts in the law came from Jerusalem to Jesus and said, “Why do your disciples disobey the tradition of the elders?  For they don’t wash their hands when they eat.”

Matthew 15:1, 2 (NET)

 

 The Pharisees and the experts in the law asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with unwashed hands?”

Mark 7:5 (NET)
He answered them, “And why do you disobey the commandment of God because of your tradition?

Matthew 15:3 (NET)

 He also said to them, “You neatly reject the commandment of God in order to set up your tradition.

Mark 7:9 (NET)
For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Whoever insults his father or mother must be put to death.’  But you say, ‘If someone tells his father or mother, “Whatever help you would have received from me is given to God,” he does not need to honor his father.’  You have nullified the word of God on account of your tradition.

Matthew 15:4-6 (NET)

 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever insults his father or mother must be put to death.’  But you say that if anyone tells his father or mother, ‘Whatever help you would have received from me is corban’ (that is, a gift for God), then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother.  Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down.  And you do many things like this.”

Mark 7:10-13 (NET)
Hypocrites!  Isaiah prophesied correctly about you when he said, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me, and they worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”

Matthew 15:7-9 (NET)

 He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.  They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrine the commandments of men.’

Mark 7:6, 7 (NET)
Having no regard for the command of God, you hold fast to human tradition.”

Mark 7:8 (NET)

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be paid back according to what he has done while in the body, whether good or evil.[29]  On the surface it sounds like a simple enough works religion, until I hear one of his judgments: On that day, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons and do many powerful deeds?’ [Table] Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you.  Go away from me, you lawbreakers!’[30]

What’s a sinner saved by grace to do?  My best answer to date is, be a sinner saved by grace.  Yes, I’m speaking from myself as opposed to quoting recognized authorities.  But I’m not seeking honor for me.  I am seeking honor for Jesus and his Father, Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God – he has seen the Father.[31]  Still Jesus said, No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.[32]  I have come to Jesus.[33]  I’m not entirely comfortable saying I am a man of integrity, and there is no unrighteousness (ἀδικία) in me, except in that sense that Paul wrote about of faith in the God who makes the dead alive and summons the things that do not yet exist as though they already do.[34]   I am on that path.

I’ll pick this up again in the next essay.

[1] Romans 12:12 (NET)

[2] Also: Matthew 10:22; 24:13 (NET)

[3] Luke 1:14a (NET)

[4] Luke 1:7 (NET)

[5] Luke 1:13 (NET)

[6] Hebrews 12:2b (NET)

[7] Hebrews 12:2c (NET)

[8] John 17:5 (NET)

[9] John 15:11 (NET)

[10] Galatians 5:22, 23 (NET)

[11] John 15:10 (NET)

[12] John 15:6 (NET)

[13] Matthew 5:20 (NET)

[14] John 15:12 (NET)

[15] Romans 13:10 (NET)

[16] John 15:13 (NET)

[17] John 17:26 (NET)

[18] Galatians 5:22a (NET)

[19] John 17:26 (KJV)

[20] Proverbs 14:12 (NET)

[21] 2 Corinthians 7:4a (NET)

[22] 2 Corinthians 9:2b (NET)

[23] 2 Corinthians 7:4b (NET)

[24] 2 Corinthians 9:4 (NET)

[25] John 14:26 (NET)

[26] 1 Corinthians 13:6a (NET)

[27] 1 Corinthians 13:6 (NASB)

[28] John 7:18 (NET)

[29] 2 Corinthians 5:10 (NET)

[30] Matthew 7:22, 23 (NET)

[31] John 6:46 (NET)

[32] John 6:44a (NET)

[33] modus ponens

[34] Romans 4:17b (NET)

Romans, Part 59

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The most obvious translation of Do not lag in zeal[1] (τῇ σπουδῇ μὴ ὀκνηροί) is something like “this haste not slothful.”  Thus we urged Titus, Paul wrote the Corinthians, that, just as he had previously begun this work, so also he should complete this act of kindness for you.  But as you excel in everything – in faith, in speech, in knowledge, and in all eagerness (σπουδῇ) and in the love from us that is in you – make sure that you excel in this act of kindness too.  I am not saying this as a command, but I am testing the genuineness of your love by comparison with the eagerness (σπουδῆς, a form of σπουδή) of others.[2]

The translation of σπουδῇ and σπουδῆς as eagerness above is not wrong if I recognize that Paul’s concern was the timeliness of completing this act of kindness rather than an emotional affect.  Certainly Paul was also interested in the Corinthians’ emotional affect, but he used a different word for that (2 Corinthians 8:10b-12 NET):

It is to your advantage, since you made a good start last year both in your giving and your desire to give, to finish what you started, so that just as you wanted to do it eagerly (προθυμία), you can also complete it according to your means.  For if the eagerness (προθυμία) is present, the gift itself is acceptable according to whatever one has, not according to what he does not have.

The Greek words σπουδῇ and σπουδῆς seem to refer here to the fact that the Corinthians made a good start last year but had failed thus far to finish what [they] started.  I know your eagerness (προθυμίαν, a form of προθυμία) to help,[3] Paul assured them.  The Corinthians’ προθυμία and προθυμίαν were not at issue.  It was σπουδῇ and σπουδῆς they lacked or needed to address (2 Corinthians 9:2b-4 NET):

I keep boasting to the Macedonians about this eagerness of yours, that Achaia has been ready to give since last year, and your zeal (ζῆλος) to participate has stirred up most of them.  But I am sending these brothers so that our boasting about you may not be empty in this case, so that you may be ready just as I kept telling them.  For if any of the Macedonians should come with me and find that you are not ready to give, we would be humiliated (not to mention you) by this confidence we had in you.

As a description of love “this haste not slothful” makes a good deal of sense.  A feigned or hypocritical love, the love of an actor, wearing a false face, speaking another’s lines, will tend to be too fast or too slow in action.  While the Love…without hypocrisy (ἀνυπόκριτος),[4] the fruit of the Holy Spirit, is timely, at a measured pace, this haste not slothful, full of the recognition that love unfeigned lasts a lifetime and beyond.

“This haste not slothful,” however, makes a terrible rule.  Here is a listing of various English translations.

Romans 12:11a

Bible Version
Never be lacking in zeal… New International Version
Never be lazy… New Living Translation
Do not be slothful in zeal… English Standard Bible
Do not become apathetic… Berean Study Bible
not lagging in diligence… Berean Literal Bible
not lagging behind in diligence… New American Standard Bible, NASB 1977
Not slothful in business… King James Bible, KJV 2000, American KJV, Webster’s Bible Translation
Do not lack diligence… Holman Christian Standard Bible
Never be lazy in showing such devotion. International Standard Version
Be diligent and do not be lazy… Aramaic Bible in Plain English, GOD’S WORD Translation
not slothful in earnest care… Jubilee Bible 2000
in diligence not slothful… American Standard Version, English Revised Version
In carefulness not slothful. Douay-Rheims Bible
as to diligent zealousness, not slothful… Darby Bible Translation
Do not be indolent when zeal is required. Weymouth New Testament
not lagging in diligence… World English Bible
in the diligence not slothful… Young’s Literal Translation

I won’t take issue with translating σπουδῇ (a form of σπουδή) abstractly as diligent or diligence: if it is leadership, he must do so with diligence (ὁ προϊστάμενος ἐν σπουδῇ).[5]  I do question translating it zeal or zealousness.  Paul did not write ζῆλος.  Matthew, Mark and John recounted two different occasions when Jesus demonstrated a godly zeal.

Matthew

 Mark

John
Then Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all those who were selling and buying in the temple courts, and turned over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves.

Matthew 21:12 (NET)

 Then they came to Jerusalem. Jesus entered the temple area and began to drive out those who were selling and buying in the temple courts. He turned over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves, and he would not permit anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts.

Mark 11:15, 16 (NET)

 Now the Jewish feast of Passover was near, so Jesus went up to Jerusalem.  He found in the temple courts those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers sitting at tables.  So he made a whip of cords and drove them all out of the temple courts, with the sheep and the oxen. He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.

John 2:13-15 (NET)
And he said to them, “It is written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are turning it into a den of robbers!”

Matthew 21:13 (NET)

 Then he began to teach them and said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have turned it into a den of robbers!”

Mark 11:17 (NET)

 To those who sold the doves he said, “Take these things away from here! Do not make my Father’s house a marketplace!”

John 2:16 (NET)

 
The chief priests and the experts in the law heard it and they considered how they could assassinate him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed by his teaching.

Mark 11:18 (NET)

 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal (ζῆλος) for your house will devour me.”

John 2:17 (NET)

 

Paul actually distinguished between this kind of zeal and love: Shall I come to you with a rod of discipline or with love (ἀγάπῃ, a form of ἀγάπη) and a spirit of gentleness?[6]  And though I have no doubt that Jesus consciously fulfilled Scripture, the incidents were also remarkable because they were uncharacteristic and atypical of Him.  The religious mind is all too eager to consider hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish rivalries, dissensions, factions, and envying[7] righteous indignation or zeal for God.  Paul gave no law encouraging the religious mind not to lag in this kind of zeal.

The description continues, be enthusiastic in spirit (τῷ πνεύματι ζέοντες [a form of ζέω]), literally “this spirit boils” or “this boiling spirit.”  If I put it back together I have, this haste not slothful, this boiling spirit.  These words make sense if applied to a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria.[8]  He was an eloquent speaker, well-versed in the scriptures.  He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and with great enthusiasm (ζέων, another form of ζέω) he spoke and taught accurately the facts about Jesus (KJV: the Lord), although he knew only the baptism of John.[9]

The danger of this kind of enthusiasm wasn’t actually revealed until the next chapter of Acts:  Paul found some disciples in Ephesus and said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”  They replied, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”[10] It gives me a different impression when Apollos began to speak out fearlessly (παρρησιάζεσθαι, a form of παῤῥησιάζομαι) in the synagogue.[11]  I contrast it to Paul and Barnabas in Iconium, παρρησιαζόμενοι ἐπὶ τῷ κυρίῳ (literally, “speaking freely upon the Lord”).  Here, I think, Paul and Barnabas relied on the Lord rather than their own “fearlessness” and He testified to the message of his grace, granting miraculous signs and wonders to be performed through their hands.[12]

Priscilla and Aquila, who had spent time with Paul,[13] slowed Apollos’ haste (without dampening his enthusiasm): when Priscilla and Aquila heard him [speak out fearlessly in the synagogue], they took him aside and explained the way of God to him more accurately.[14]  Apollos traveled from Ephesus to Achaia.  When he arrived, he assisted greatly those who had believed by grace,[15] the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, passive homosexual partners, practicing homosexuals, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, the verbally abusive, and swindlers[16] who had responded to Paul’s presentation of the Gospel.[17]  (No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, Jesus said, and I will raise him up at the last day.[18])  Apollos greatly assisted them, not by browbeating them to live better lives, but by preoccupying those who might have done so: for he refuted the Jews (Ἰουδαίοις, a form of  Ἰουδαῖος) vigorously in public debate, demonstrating from the scriptures that the Christ was Jesus.[19]

This haste not slothful, this boiling spirit, serve (δουλεύοντες, a form of δουλεύω) the Lord,[20] or serving the Lord,[21] or “this Lord enslaved,” or “enslaved to this Lord.”  Ordinarily I might think of being enslaved as a negative thing.  But Paul compared the slavery of righteousness to the slavery of sin (admittedly, speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh), just as you once presented your members as slaves (δοῦλα, a form of δοῦλος) to impurity and lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves (δοῦλα, a form of δοῦλος) to righteousness leading to sanctification.[22]

For we too were once foolish, Paul wrote to Titus, disobedient, misled, enslaved (δουλεύοντες, a form of δουλεύω) to various passions and desires, spending our lives in evil and envy, hateful and hating one another.[23]  If I think of serving (δουλεύοντες, a form of δουλεύω) the Lord or being enslaved to the Lord as something like the work I do to please my employer, I will think that I am obeying a rule: serve the Lord.  If on the other hand I think of serving (δουλεύοντες, a form of δουλεύω) the Lord or being enslaved to the Lord as something more like being enslaved (δουλεύοντες, a form of δουλεύω) to various passions and desires, well, that’s more like what I did on the weekends after work.

And I think that is more like the δουλεύοντες Paul described here, the natural (super-natural) outpouring of this boiling spirit.  In fact, I should work for my employer in this same way and not like I used to work before I was enslaved to the Lord.  Slaves, obey (ὑπακούετε, a form of ὑπακούω) your human masters with fear and trembling, Paul wrote the Ephesians, in the sincerity (ἁπλότητι, a form of ἁπλότης) of your heart (καρδίας, a form of καρδία) as to Christ, not like those who do their work only when someone is watching – as people-pleasers – but as slaves (δοῦλοι, a form of δοῦλος) of Christ doing the will of God from the heart (ψυχῆς, a form of ψυχή).  Obey with enthusiasm (εὐνοίας, a form of εὔνοια), as though serving (δουλεύοντες, a form of δουλεύω) the Lord and not people…[24]

Part of the definition of ἁπλότητι in the NET is “free from pretence and hypocrisy,” “not self seeking.”  This ἁπλότητι comes from the love that is not self-serving.[25]  All of this is accomplished as slaves (δοῦλοι, a form of δοῦλος) of Christ, not as someone in some wretched social condition but as one whose attitudes and actions are produced by the fruit of the Holy Spirit: For the love of Christ controls (συνέχει, a form of συνέχω) us…[26]  Doing the will of God from the heart[27]…with enthusiasm (or, good will), as[28]… serving (or, enslaved to) the Lord and not people.  We have died to what controlled (κατειχόμεθα, a form of κατέχω) us, so that we may serve (δουλεύειν, a form of δουλεύω) in the new life of the Spirit and not under the old written code.[29]

And so I have, “this haste not slothful, this boiling spirit, enslaved to the Lord.”  Transforming a description of Love…without hypocrisy into three rules—Do not lag in zeal, be enthusiastic in spirit, serve the Lord—may be equivalent to the παρρησιάζεσθαι of Apollos in the synagogue, but it will never rival the παρρησιαζόμενοι ἐπὶ τῷ κυρίῳ of Paul and Barnabas in Iconium.  For it lacks all the power of God.

[1] Romans 12:11a (NET)

[2] 2 Corinthians 8:6-8 (NET)

[3] 2 Corinthians 9:2a (NET)

[4] Romans 12:9a (NET)

[5] Romans 12:8 (NET)

[6] 1 Corinthians 4:21b (NET)

[7] Galatians 5:19, 20 (NET)

[8] Acts 18:24a (NET)

[9] Acts 18:24b, 25 (NET) Table

[10] Acts 19:2 (NET)

[11] Acts 18:26a (NET)

[12] Acts 14:3 (NET)

[13] Acts 18:2, 3 (NET)

[14] Acts 18:26b (NET)

[15] Acts 18:27b (NET)

[16] 1 Corinthians 6:9b, 10a (NET) Table

[17] 1 Corinthians 6:11 (NET)

[18] John 6:44 (NET)

[19] Acts 18:28 (NET)

[20] Romans 12:11 (NET) Table

[21] Romans 12:11 (NAS)

[22] Romans 6:19 (NET)

[23] Titus 3:3 (NET)

[24] Ephesians 6:5-7 (NET)

[25] 1 Corinthians 13:5 (NET)

[26] 2 Corinthians 5:14a (NET)

[27] The NET note on obey in verse 7: “Though the verb does not appear again at this point in the passage, it is nonetheless implied and supplied in the English translation for the sake of clarity.”

[28] I don’t see anything to translate though in the Greek.  This is not something to be faked as though, but is the real righteousness of God, the love that is the fulfillment of the law..

[29] Romans 7:6b (NET)

Romans, Part 58

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In this essay I’ll continue looking at the aftermath of Jesus feeding five thousand plus people in the light of his assessment of the Jewish leaders (Ἰουδαῖοι, a form of Ἰουδαῖος)[1] as an answer to how the Father seeking his own is not self-seeking.  And ultimately it is a continuing part of my attempt to view—Do not lag in zeal, be enthusiastic in spirit, serve the Lord[2]—as a definition of love (ἀγάπη) rather than as rules.  Jesus spoke to those who followed Him not because [they] saw miraculous signs, but because [they] ate all the loaves of bread [they] wanted[3] after they began complaining about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven”[4] (John 6:43-45 NET):

Do not complain about me to one another.  No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.  It is written in the prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’  Everyone who hears and learns from (παρὰ) the Father comes to me.

As I’ve written elsewhere the translation draws may be understating the case a bit if I think in terms of the hymn, “Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling.”[5]  The Greek word ἑλκύσῃ (a form of ἑλκύω) translated draws above means something more like drags more often than not in the New Testament.  No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me [drags] him gives a little different picture of the situation.

Jesus’ summary of the prophets—‘And they will all be taught by God’—was translated as follows in the KJV: And they shall be all taught of God.  Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.[6]  To a contemporary ear this may sound like “they will all be taught about God” and “Everyone who has heard and learned about the Father, comes to Jesus.”  The editors of the NKJV, aware of this quirk of contemporary English, clarified the meaning of the text:  ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’  Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me.[7]  And it becomes doubly clear when I recognize that Jesus, the Holy Spirit and John felt the need to include the parenthetical: Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from (παρὰ) God – he has seen the Father.[8]

I don’t want to pass by too quickly without examining Jesus’ summary of the prophets: ‘And they will all be taught by God.’  A note in the NET claimed this as a quotation of Isaiah 54:13.  So I’ll look at that chapter a bit (Isaiah 54:4-13a NET):

Don’t be afraid, for you will not be put to shame!  Don’t be intimidated, for you will not be humiliated!  You will forget about the shame you experienced in your youth; you will no longer remember the disgrace of your abandonment.  For your husband is the one who made you – the Lord (yehôvâh, יהוה) who commands armies is his name.  He is your protector, the Holy One of Israel.  He is called “God (ʼĕlôhı̂ym, אלהי) of the entire earth.”

“Indeed, the Lord (yehôvâh, יהוה) will call you back like a wife who has been abandoned and suffers from depression, like a young wife when she has been rejected,” says your God (ʼĕlôhı̂ym, אלהיך).  “For a short time I abandoned you, but with great compassion I will gather you.  In a burst of anger I rejected you momentarily, but with lasting devotion I will have compassion on you,” says your protector, the Lord (yehôvâh, יהוה).

“As far as I am concerned, this is like in Noah’s time, when I vowed that the waters of Noah’s flood would never again cover the earth.  In the same way I have vowed that I will not be angry at you or shout at you.  Even if the mountains are removed and the hills displaced, my devotion will not be removed from you, nor will my covenant of friendship be displaced,” says the Lord (yehôvâh, יהוה), the one who has compassion on you.

“O afflicted one, driven away, and unconsoled!  Look, I am about to set your stones in antimony and I lay your foundation with lapis-lazuli.  I will make your pinnacles out of gems, your gates out of beryl, and your outer wall out of beautiful stones.  All your children will be followers of the Lord (yehôvâh, יהוה)…

And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The Deliverer will come out of Zion; he will remove ungodliness from Jacob.  And this is my covenant with them, when I take away their sins.”[9]

“Indeed, a time is coming,” says the Lord (yehôvâh, יהוה), “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah.  It will not be like the old covenant that I made with their ancestors when I delivered them from Egypt.  For they violated that covenant, even though I was like a faithful husband to them,” says the Lord (yehôvâh, יהוה).  “But I will make a new covenant with the whole nation of Israel after I plant them back in the land,” says the Lord (yehôvâh, יהוה).  “I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts and minds.  I will be their God (ʼĕlôhı̂ym, לאלהים) and they will be my people.

“People will no longer need to teach their neighbors and relatives to know me.  For all of them, from the least important to the most important, will know me,” says the Lord (yehôvâh, יהוה).  “For I will forgive their sin and will no longer call to mind the wrong they have done” [Table].

The Lord (yehôvâh, יהוה) has made a promise to Israel.  He promises it as the one who fixed the sun to give light by day and the moon and stars to give light by night.  He promises it as the one who stirs up the sea so that its waves roll.  He promises it as the one who is known as the Lord (yehôvâh, יהוה) who rules over all.[10]

A note in the NET acknowledges that, Everyone who hears and learns from the Father comes to me, might have been translated “listens to the Father and learns.”  The latter translation actually fits the Greek word order (πᾶς ὁ ἀκούσας παρὰ τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ μαθὼν ἔρχεται πρὸς ἐμέ) better than the former.  I’m pleasantly surprised that it was translated as it was.

A narrow path is created by 1) No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; 2) ‘And they will all be taught by God;’ and 3) Everyone who hears and learns from the Father comes to me.  I definitely relate this to, So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word (ρήματα, a form of ῥῆμα) of God.[11]  If everyone who hears from God also learns from God, they will all be taught by God carries a different weight than everyone who hears from God must learn on his own to come to Jesus.[12]

I found a thoughtful sermon online from John Piper that accurately portrays the teaching of my religion:

In John 6:44, Jesus says, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” And in John 12:32, Jesus says, “I will draw all people to myself.” So John 6:44 teaches, I argued last week, that the Father draws people triumphantly to the Son, and all whom he draws come, because the drawing is decisive. And John 12:32 teaches that Jesus draws all to himself.[13]

The solution to this dilemma (dilemma because my religion rejects the notion of universal salvation) is that all in John 12:32 (NET)—And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself—does not mean all people (people is not in the original text).  All means “all the children of God” or “all of my sheep.”[14]  To my mind this limitation disregards, Let God be proven true, and every human being shown up as a liar, just as it is written: “so that you will be justified in your words and will prevail when you are judged.”[15]

If the Lord does not wish (βουλόμενος, a form of βούλομαι) for any to perish but for all to come to repentance,[16] we need to consider these “couplets,” as I think of them, in another way.  No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him;[17] And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.[18]  So then, it does not depend on human desire or exertion, but on God who shows mercy;[19] For God has consigned all people to disobedience so that he may show mercy to them all.[20]  And consider these in the light of his unilateral declaration: I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.[21]

All the Lord has to do is declare that these words justify Him to call as many, up to and including all, to repentance as He desires and John Piper and I have no way to contradict Him.  There are three reasons I won’t go all the way and say I believe in universal salvation: 1) I have no standing to tell the Lord He must save all; 2) my own theory how this might be possible, that universal salvation entails universal condemnation, while intellectually satisfying, is emotionally horrifying; and 3) it seems to me that the arguments of Scripture lock me out from determining such a thing at the same time they free me to pray for “the mercy on which everything depends, for it does not depend on human desire or exertion but on You who shows mercy, and You have consigned all to disobedience so that You may show mercy to all.”

Jesus continued (John 6:47-51 NET):

I tell you the solemn truth, the one who believes has eternal life.  I am the bread of life (Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ἄρτος τῆς ζωῆς).  Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.  This is the bread that has come down from heaven, so that a person may eat from it and not die.  I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  If anyone eats from this bread he will live forever.  The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

Then the Ἰουδαῖοι began to argue with one another, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”[22]  The Church’s answer to their question was Transubstantiation.  If Transubstantiation is Jesus’ answer, too, then He might have said: “You will walk to the front of the congregation and kneel before the priest who will give you a morsel of bread and a sip of wine, the substance of which he has changed into my literal body and blood respectively, but it will still look and taste like bread and wine.”  And I’ll read what He actually said in that light (John 6:53-58 NET):

I tell you the solemn truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves.  The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.  For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink [Table].  The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood resides in me, and I in him.  Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so the one who consumes me will live because of me.  This is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the bread your ancestors ate, but then later died.  The one who eats this bread will live forever.

In this case I would assume that Jesus deliberately used offensive language to thin the herd of his followers.  If, on the other hand, I believe that Jesus’ answer to their question—How can this man give us his flesh to eat?—came later in the text when He spoke privately with his disciples, I will have a different perspective: The Spirit is the one who gives life; human nature (σὰρξ) is of no help![23]  The words (ρήματα, a form of ῥῆμα) that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.[24]

I may still wonder if He spoke something like a parable that may have been misunderstood by others, that He explained to his core disciples, but I also recognize that He spoke of something deeper than my ability to learn in my natural self from spiritual teaching.  And I recall that the concept of eating the words of God was familiar to Jesus’ audience (Ezekiel 3:1-4 NET):

He said to me, “Son of man, eat what you see in front of you – eat this scroll – and then go and speak to the house of Israel.”  So I opened my mouth and he fed me the scroll.

He said to me, “Son of man, feed your stomach and fill your belly with this scroll I am giving to you.”  So I ate it, and it was sweet like honey in my mouth.

He said to me, “Son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak my words to them.”

In this case his hearers may not have been offended because they thought Jesus spoke of cannibalism.  They understood his allusion.  They were offended because Jesus didn’t hand them the law of Moses to eat, but Himself and his own teaching as the Spirit words to be ingested.  They rejected Him not because they were confused but because they understood Him perfectly and their hearts were hardened (Ezekiel 3:5-7 NET):

For you are not being sent to a people of unintelligible speech and difficult language, but to the house of Israel – not to many peoples of unintelligible speech and difficult language, whose words you cannot understand – surely if I had sent you to them, they would listen to you!  But the house of Israel is unwilling to listen to you, because they are not willing to listen to me, for the whole house of Israel is hard-headed and hard-hearted.

 After this many of his disciples quit following him and did not accompany him any longer.  So Jesus said to the twelve, “You don’t want to go away too, do you?”[25]

Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom would we go?  You have the words (ρήματα, a form of ῥῆμα) of eternal life.  We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God!”[26] 

If Jesus were only seeking those who have come to believe and to know that [He is] the Holy One of God, then I’m not sure if that would be self-serving or not.  If He is serious about seeking those who are his own in name only but in actual point of fact are hardened and reject Him, it is clear that seeking his own is not self-seeking, but clearly an act of the love that is not self-serving.[27]

[1] John 5:16-47 (NET) Now because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders (Ἰουδαῖοι) began persecuting him (verse 16) [Table].

[2] Romans 12:11 (NET) Table

[3] John 6:26 (NET)

[4] John 6:41 (NET)

[5] http://library.timelesstruths.org/music/Softly_and_Tenderly/

[6] John 6:45 (KJV)

[7] John 6:45 (NKJV)

[8] John 6:46 (NET)

[9] Romans 11:26, 27 (NET)

[10] Jeremiah 31:31-35 (NET)

[11] Romans 10:17 (NKJV)

[12] Even the KJV translators chose this path: Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me (John 6:45b KJV).  Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me (John 6:45b NKJV).  I’m afraid I would have assumed in the past that learned was my own work, to blunt the impact of And they will all be taught by God (e.g., only those who learned by whatever wisdom or virtue they possessed innately would benefit from being taught by God or having heard from God).

[13] http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/they-will-all-be-taught-of-god

[14] http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/they-will-all-be-taught-of-god

[15] Romans 3:4 (NET)

[16] 2 Peter 3:9b (NET)

[17] John 6:44a (NET)

[18] John 12:32 (NET)

[19] Romans 9:16 (NET) Table

[20] Romans 11:32 (NET)

[21] Romans 9:15 (NET)

[22] John 6:52 (NET)

[23] ἡ σὰρξ οὐκ ὠφελεῖ οὐδέν appears almost as a double negative: “the flesh, no, it assists (is useful, advantageous or profitable, to) no one.”

[24] John 6:63 (NET)

[25] John 6:66, 67 (NET)

[26] John 6:68, 69 (NET)

[27] 1 Corinthians 13:5 (NET)

Romans, Part 57

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In this essay I’m looking at the aftermath of Jesus feeding five thousand plus people in the light of his assessment of the Jewish leaders (Ἰουδαῖοι, a form of Ἰουδαῖος)[1] as an answer to how the Father seeking his own is not self-seeking.  And ultimately it is a continuing part of my attempt to view—Do not lag in zeal, be enthusiastic in spirit, serve the Lord[2]—as a definition of love (ἀγάπη) rather than as rules.  Matthew and Mark end this thread of their narratives focused on people who did not eat from the five loaves and two fish.

Matthew

Mark
After they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret.  When the people there recognized him, they sent word into all the surrounding area, and they brought all their sick to him.  They begged him if they could only touch the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.

Matthew 14:34-36 (NET)

 After they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and anchored there.  As they got out of the boat, people immediately recognized Jesus.  They ran through that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever he was rumored to be.  And wherever he would go – into villages, towns, or countryside – they would place the sick in the marketplaces, and would ask him if they could just touch the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.

Mark 6:53-56 (NET)

John grappled with the more distressing story of many who did eat from the five loaves and two fish (John 6:22-24 NET).

The next day the crowd that remained on the other side of the lake realized that only one small boat had been there, and that Jesus had not boarded it with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone.  But some boats from Tiberias came to shore near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks.  So when the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus.

When they found him on the other side of the lake, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”[3]

Jesus didn’t answer their question.  Instead He said to those who were part of the crowd… following him because they were observing the miraculous signs he was performing on the sick,[4] who saw the miraculous sign that Jesus performed, [and] began to say to one another, “This is certainly the Prophet who is to come into the world,”[5] who were going to come and seize him by force to make him king:[6] I tell you the solemn truth, you are looking for me not because you saw miraculous signs (σημεῖα, a form of σημεῖον), but because you ate all the loaves of bread you wanted.[7]

They didn’t argue with Him about it.  In fact, they said something a bit later that confirms his assessment of their motives.[8]  And I’m reminded of Mark’s Gospel narrative, they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.[9]  Who and what did they believe instead of Jesus?

I’ll hazard a guess that they were afraid (ἐφοβοῦντο, a form of φοβέω) of the Jewish (Ἰουδαίους, a form of Ἰουδαῖος) religious leaders.  For the Jewish leaders (Ἰουδαῖοι, another form of Ἰουδαῖος) had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Christ would be put out of the synagogue.[10]  We are disciples of Moses, the Ἰουδαῖοι said.  We know that God has spoken to Moses!  We do not know where this man comes from![11]

Jesus didn’t walk into anyone’s place of employment, interrupt him and say, Do not work for the food that disappears.  Instead, He said it to those who had spent their time, their effort and their money to follow Him not because [they] saw miraculous signs, but because [they] ate all the loaves of bread [they] wanted: Do not work for the food that disappears, but for the food that remains to eternal life – the food which the Son of Man will give to you.  For God the Father has put his seal of approval on him.[12]

I played the organ, and sometimes the piano, at a downtown mission the summer after I got my driver’s license.  The man who ran the mission was a nice enough guy in everyday life but an angry[13] preacher.  I felt sorry for the homeless men, sometimes a few women, sitting through that angry tirade everyday for the free meal that followed.  But as I look at it in this light, maybe they got what they paid for, indigestion.

Those who followed Jesus not because [they] saw miraculous signs, but because [they] ate all the loaves of bread [they] wanted seemed to grasp his meaning when He told them to work… for the food that remains to eternal life.

What must we do to accomplish the deeds God requires?[14] they asked.

This is the deed God requires, Jesus answered, to believe in the one whom he sent.[15]

They understood that Jesus claimed to be the one God sent: Then what miraculous sign will you perform, so that we may see it and believe you?  What will you do?[16]  Here they unmasked themselves, for they already had a sign in mind.  Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, just as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’[17]  In other words, give us more free food and we’ll believe you.

I’m going to hazard another guess that what they really wanted wasn’t free food.  What they really wanted was confirmation of their own goodness and acceptability in God’s sight (Deuteronomy 28:12, 13 NET):

The Lord will open for you his good treasure house, the heavens, to give you rain for the land in its season and to bless all you do; you will lend to many nations but you will not borrow from any.  The Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always end up at the top and not at the bottom, if you obey his commandments which I am urging you today to be careful to do.

Let me put this back in perspicuous form:  If you obey his commandments, the Lord will make you the head and not the tail.  If you obey his commandments, you will always end up at the top and not at the bottom.  Those who followed Jesus not because [they] saw miraculous signs, but because [they] ate all the loaves of bread [they] wanted didn’t feel like they were the head, at the top, under Roman rule.  It was a jarring, glaring, living example of denying the consequent, modus tollens, a deductively valid argument that they were not obeying the Lord’s commandments.  And it wasn’t from a lack of trying.  That needs to be clearly understood.

The Jewish Encyclopedia online defines Zealots (Hebrew, Ḳanna’im) as follows: “Zealous defenders of the Law and of the national life of the Jewish people; name of a party opposing with relentless rigor any attempt to bring Judea under the dominion of idolatrous Rome, and especially of the aggressive and fanatical war party from the time of Herod until the fall of Jerusalem and Masada. The members of this party bore also the name Sicarii, from their custom of going about with daggers (‘sicæ’) hidden beneath their cloaks, with which they would stab any one found committing a sacrilegious act or anything provoking anti-Jewish feeling.”[18]

“This unfailing ‘zeal for the Law’ became the standard of piety in the days of the Maccabean struggle against the Hellenizers. Thus it is asserted that when Mattathias slew the Jew whom he saw sacrificing to an idol, ‘he dealt zealously for the law of God, as did Phinehas[19] unto Zimri the son of Salu’; and Mattathias’ claim of descent from Phinehas implies that, like the latter, he obtained for his house the covenant of an everlasting priesthood (I Macc. ii. 24, 26, 54).”[20]

“‘Ḳanna’im’ was the name for those zealous for the honor and sanctity of the Law as well as of the sanctuary, and for this reason they at first met with the support and encouragement of the people and of the Pharisaic leaders, particularly those of the rigid school of Shammai.[21] It was only after they had been so carried away by their fanatic zeal as to become wanton destroyers of life and property throughout the land that they were denounced as heretic Galileans (Yad. iv. 8) and ‘murderers’ and that their principles were repudiated by the peace-loving Pharisees.”[22]

Jesus’ disciples were steeped in this milieu.  Lord, is this the time when you are restoring the kingdom to Israel?[23]  This question was foremost in their minds moments before Jesus’ ascension.  And Jesus’ response to his faithful followers was, You are not permitted to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.  But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…[24]

So Jesus instructed them to wait in Jerusalem for the promised Holy Spirit, the source of the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control[25] that is the fulfillment of the law.[26]  Jesus was focused on the work his Father had sent Him to accomplish (Matthew 5:17-20 NET):

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.  I have not come to abolish these things but to fulfill them.  I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth pass away not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter will pass from the law until everything takes place.  So anyone who breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever obeys them and teaches others to do so will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.  For I tell you, unless your righteousness goes beyond that of the experts in the law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

So how did Jesus respond to those who followed Him not because [they] saw miraculous signs, but because [they] ate all the loaves of bread [they] wanted?

I tell you the solemn truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but my Father is giving you the true bread from heaven.  For the bread of God (ἄρτος τοῦ θεοῦ) is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.[27]

Give us today our daily bread (ἄρτον, a form of ἄρτος).[28]  I wouldn’t alter the translation but it’s important to realize that as I pray this I’m asking, Give us today our daily Jesus, the fruit of his Spirit.  Sir (κύριε, a form of κύριος), give us this bread all the time,[29] those who followed Jesus not because [they] saw miraculous signs, but because [they] ate all the loaves of bread [they] wanted said.

Outwardly, they appeared to be doing right, following Jesus.  They said the right words: Sir (literally, Lord), give us this bread all the time.  The note in the NET reads: “The Greek κύριος (kurios) means both ‘Sir’ and ‘Lord.’ In this passage it is not at all clear at this point that the crowd is acknowledging Jesus as Lord. More likely this is simply a form of polite address (‘sir’).”  And I agree, for when Jesus clearly identified Himself as the ἄρτος τοῦ θεοῦ saying, I am the bread of life (ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ἄρτος τῆς ζωῆς),[30] they began complaining about him.[31]

I am the bread of life.  The one who comes to me will never go hungry, and the one who believes in me will never be thirsty.  But I told you that you have seen me and still do not believe.  Everyone whom the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never send away.  For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me.  Now this is the will of the one who sent me – that I should not lose one person of every one he has given me, but raise them all up at the last day.  For this is the will of my Father – for everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him to have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.[32]

Then the Jews who were hostile to Jesus (Ἰουδαῖοι, a form of Ἰουδαῖος) began complaining about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven…”[33]  The note in the NET reads: “Grk ‘Then the Jews.’ In NT usage the term ᾿Ιουδαῖοι (Ioudaioi) may refer to the entire Jewish people, the residents of Jerusalem and surrounding territory, the authorities in Jerusalem, or merely those who were hostile to Jesus…Here the translation restricts the phrase to those Jews who were hostile to Jesus (cf. BDAG 479 s.v. ᾿Ιουδαῖος 2.e.β), since the ‘crowd’ mentioned in 6:22-24 was almost all Jewish (as suggested by their addressing Jesus as ‘Rabbi’ (6:25). Likewise, the designation ‘Judeans’ does not fit here because the location is Galilee rather than Judea.”

Yes, I get it.  The Jews who responded to Jesus this way were hostile or hardened.  There were other Jews who were not so hostile, who had heard and learned from the Father.[34]  But I think another important point that John and the Holy Spirit have made here is that it was “Jewishness” that began complaining about him because he said…  It was the religious mind, and the religious mind comes in many flavors, even scientific, even atheist, even Christian flavors.

Romans, Part 58

[1] John 5:16-47 (NET) Now because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders (Ἰουδαῖοι) began persecuting him (verse 16).

[2] Romans 12:11 (NET) Table

[3] John 6:25 (NET)

[4] John 6:2 (NET)

[5] John 6:14 (NET)

[6] John 6:15 (NET)

[7] John 6:26 (NET)

[8] John 6:31 (NET)

[9] Mark 6:52 (NET)

[10] John 9:22 (NET)

[11] John 9:28b, 29 (NET)

[12] John 6:27 (NET)

[13] James 1:20; 3:17, 18 (NET)

[14] John 6:28 (NET)

[15] John 6:29 (NET)

[16] John 6:30 (NET)

[17] John 6:31 (NET)

[18] Kaufmann Kohler,  ZEALOTS, Jewish Encyclopedia

[19] Numbers 25 (NET)

[20] Kaufmann Kohler,  ZEALOTS, Jewish Encyclopedia

[21] An interesting insight on Paul: Paul: At the Feet of Gamaliel?  In my zeal for God I persecuted the church (Philippians 3:6a NET).

[22] Kaufmann Kohler,  ZEALOTS, Jewish Encyclopedia

[23] Acts 1:6 (NET) Table

[24] Acts 1:7, 8a (NET) Table

[25] Galatians 5:22, 23a (NET)

[26] Romans 13:10b (NET)

[27] John 6:32, 33 (NET)

[28] Matthew 6:11 (NET)

[29] John 6:34 (NET)

[30] John 6:35a (NET)

[31] John 6:41a (NET)

[32] John 6:35-40 (NET)

[33] John 6:41 (NET)

[34] John 6:45

Romans, Part 56

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Ezekiel prophesied: For this is what the sovereign (ʼădônây,  אדני) Lord (yehôvih, יהוה) says: Look, I myself will search for my sheep and seek them out.  As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his scattered sheep, so I will seek out my flock.   I will rescue them from all the places where they have been scattered on a cloudy, dark day.[1]  I will seek the lost and bring back the strays; I will bandage the injured and strengthen the sick, but the fat and the strong I will destroy.   I will feed them – with judgment![2]

I will save my sheep; they will no longer be prey.  I will judge between one sheep and another.  I will set one shepherd over them, and he will feed them – namely, my servant David.  He will feed them and will be their shepherd.  I, the Lord (yehôvâh,  יהוה), will be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them; I, the Lord (yehôvâh,  יהוה), have spoken![3]

This is a fitting introduction to this section of the story of Jesus feeding five thousand plus people in the light of his assessment of the Jewish leaders (Ἰουδαῖοι, a form of Ἰουδαῖος)[4] as an answer to how the Father seeking his own is not self-seeking.  And ultimately it is a continuing part of my attempt to view—Do not lag in zeal, be enthusiastic in spirit, serve the Lord[5]—as a definition of love (ἀγάπη) rather than as rules.

Matthew Mark Luke

John
And they said, “Should we go and buy bread for two hundred silver coins and give it to them to eat?”  He said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.”

Mark 6:37, 38a (NET)

 They replied, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish – unless we go and buy food for all these people.”

Luke 9:13b (NET)
They said to him, “We have here only five loaves and two fish.”  “Bring them here to me,” he replied.

Matthew 14:17, 18 (NET)

 When they found out, they said, “Five – and two fish.”

Mark 6:38b (NET)

 One of Jesus’ disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “Here is a[6] boy who has[7] five barley loaves and two fish, but what good are these for so many people?” [Table]

John 6:8, 9 (NET)

If I accept John’s contention that— Jesus, when he looked up and saw that a large crowd was coming to him, said to Philip, “Where can we buy bread so that these people may eat?”[8]—I get a slightly different picture of the situation.  I suspect that while Jesus taught and healed the people his disciples, anticipating, were on the lookout for food.  They didn’t really expect to spend two hundred silver coins, the amount Phillip assessed earlier that day: Philip replied, “Two hundred silver coins worth of bread would not be enough for them, for each one to get a little.”[9]

Later that evening when they came to Jesus and said—This is an isolated place and the hour is already late.  Send the crowds away so that they can go into the villages and buy food for themselves[10]—their compassion for the people was tinged by their perceived failure to find a sufficient supply of food.  Mark captured their astonishment when Jesus replied—You give them something to eat—Should we go and buy bread for two hundred silver coins [recalling Philip’s earlier assessment] and give it to them to eat?[11]

How many loaves do you have? Jesus asked.  Go and see.[12]

Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “Here is a boy who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what good are these for so many people?”[13]

Matthew

 Mark Luke

John
Then he instructed the crowds to sit down on the grass.

Matthew 14:19a (NET)

 Then he directed them all to sit down in groups on the green grass.  So they reclined in groups of hundreds and fifties.

Mark 6:39, 40 (NET)

 Then he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.”  So they did as Jesus directed, and the people all sat down.

Luke 9:14b, 15 (NET)

 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” (Now there was a lot of grass in that place.)  So the men sat down…

John 6:10a (NET)
He took the five loaves and two fish, and looking up to heaven he gave thanks and broke the loaves.  He gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds.  They all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up the broken pieces left over, twelve baskets full.

Matthew 14:19b, 20 (NET)

 He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. He gave them to his disciples to serve the people, and he divided the two fish among them all.  They all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up the broken pieces and fish that were left over, twelve baskets full.

Mark 6:41-43 (NET)

 Then he took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven he gave thanks and broke them. He gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd.  They all ate and were satisfied, and what was left over was picked up – twelve baskets of broken pieces.

Luke 9:16, 17 (NET)

 Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed the bread to those who were seated.  He then did the same with the fish, as much as they wanted.  When they were all satisfied, Jesus said to his disciples, “Gather up the broken pieces that are left over,[14] so that nothing is wasted.”  So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with broken pieces from the five barley loaves left over by the people who had eaten [Table].

John 6:11-13 (NET)
Not counting women and children, there were about five thousand men who ate.

Matthew 14:21 (NET)

 Now there were five thousand men who ate the bread.

Mark 6:44 (NET)

 (Now about five thousand men were there.)

Luke 9:14a (NET)

 … about five thousand in number.

John 6:10b (NET)

I have nothing to add to this scene except the words of yehôvih (יהוה) through the prophet Ezekiel: In a good pasture I will feed them; the mountain heights of Israel will be their pasture.  There they will lie down in a lush pasture, and they will feed on rich grass on the mountains of Israel.  I myself will feed my sheep and I myself will make them lie down, declares the sovereign (ʼădônây,  אדני) Lord (yehôvih).[15]  Only John’s Gospel narrative picked up on this.

Matthew

 Mark Luke

John
Now when the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus performed, they began to say to one another, “This is certainly the Prophet who is to come into the world.”

John 6:14 (NET)
Immediately (εὐθέως) Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side, while he dispersed the crowds [Table].

Matthew 14:22 (NET)

 Immediately (εὐθὺς) Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dispersed the crowd.

Mark 6:45 (NET)
And after he sent the crowds away, he went up the mountain by himself to pray.

Matthew 14:23a (NET)

 After saying good-bye to them, he went to the mountain to pray.

Mark 6:46 (NET)

 Then Jesus, because he knew they were going to come and seize him by force to make him king, withdrew again up the mountainside alone.

John 6:15 (NET)

Luke’s Gospel abandoned this particular narrative thread.

Matthew

 Mark

John
When evening came, [Jesus] was there alone.  Meanwhile the boat, already far from land, was taking a beating from the waves because the wind was against it.

Matthew 14:23b, 24 (NET)

 When evening came, the boat was in the middle of the sea and he was alone on the land.  He saw them straining at the oars, because the wind was against them.

Mark 6:47, 48a (NET)

 Now when evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, got into a boat, and started to cross the lake to Capernaum.  (It had already become dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them.)  By now a strong wind was blowing and the sea was getting rough.

John 6:16-18 (NET)

John’s Gospel narrative gives me the impression that Jesus’ disciples waited around for Him a bit longer than Matthew’s εὐθέως (translated, immediately NET or straightway KJV) or Mark’s εὐθὺς (translated, immediately NET or straightway KJV) led me at first to believe.  As I look at it now I think εὐθέως and εὐθὺς spoke more to Jesus’ urgency dismissing his disciples because he knew [the people who saw the miraculous sign] were going to come and seize him by force to make him king.

Matthew

 Mark

John
As the night was ending, Jesus came to them walking on the sea.  When the disciples saw him walking on the water they were terrified and said, “It’s a ghost!” and cried out with fear.  But immediately (εὐθὺς) Jesus spoke to them: “Have courage! It is I.  Do not be afraid.”

Matthew 14:25-27 (NET)

 As the night was ending, he came to them walking on the sea, for he wanted to pass by them.  When they saw him walking on the water they thought he was a ghost.  They cried out, for they all saw him and were terrified.  But immediately (εὐθὺς) he spoke to them: “Have courage!  It is I.  Do not be afraid.”

Mark 6:48b-50 (NET)

 Then, when they had rowed about three or four miles, they caught sight of Jesus walking on the lake, approaching the boat, and they were frightened.  But he said to them, “It is I.  Do not be afraid.”

John 6:19, 20 (NET)

Only Matthew recorded what happened next.  I wonder if the tax collector’s prayer Jesus spoke[16] about was Matthew’s (also known as Levi).[17]

Matthew Mark

John
Peter said to him, “Lord, if it is you, order me to come to you on the water.”  So he said, “Come.” Peter got out of the boat, walked on the water, and came toward Jesus [Table].  But when he saw the strong wind he became afraid. And starting to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!”  Immediately (εὐθέως) Jesus reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith (ὀλιγόπιστε, a form of ὀλιγόπιστος), why did you doubt?”

Matthew 14:28-31 (NET)

I have written about this before.[18]

Matthew

 Mark

John
When they went up into the boat, the wind ceased.  Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

Matthew 14:32, 33 (NET)

 Then he went up with them into the boat, and the wind ceased. They were completely astonished, because they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.

Mark 6:51, 52 (NET)

 Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately (εὐθέως) the boat came to the land where they had been heading.

John 6:21 (NET)

Matthew wrote, Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”  Mark wrote, They were completely astonished, because they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.  And John let both stand without comment.  This was curious until I stepped back into the scene.

If I crawl into the boat and look first through Matthew’s eyes as he watched Peter get out of the boat at Jesus’ command and walk on the water toward Him, it’s immaterial to me that Peter began to flounder.  Of course he did.  What was astonishing was that he stood and walked at all!  Truly, Jesus is the Son of God.

If, on the other hand, I get out of the boat with Peter (the presumed source of Mark’s Gospel narrative) and take those few tentative steps, see the wind whipping up the waves, fear and begin to sink… While it is not immaterial that Jesus reached out his hand and caught me, my focus is his question: why did you doubt?  And until the Holy Spirit was given, truly, Peter’s heart was hardened, as were the hearts of all the rest of Jesus’ disciples and all Israel (Isaiah 6 NET): it does not depend on human desire or exertion, but on God who shows mercy.[19]

I’ll continue this thread in the next essay.

Romans, Part 57

[1] Ezekiel 34:11, 12 (NET)

[2] Ezekiel 34:16 (NET)

[3] Ezekiel 34:22-24 (NET)

[4] John 5:16-47 (NET) Now because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders (Ἰουδαῖοι) began persecuting him (verse 16).

[5] Romans 12:11 (NET) Table

[6] The Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had εν here.  The NET parallel Greek text and NA28 did not.

[7] The NET parallel Greek text and NA28 had ὃς here, where the Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had ο (KJV: which).

[8] John 6:5 (NET)

[9] John 6:7 (NET)

[10] Matthew 14:15 (NET)

[11] Mark 6:37 (NET)

[12] Mark 6:38a (NET)

[13] John 6:8, 9 (NET)

[14] The NET parallel Greek text and NA28 had ἐπερίσσευσαν here, where the Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had επερισσευσεν (KJV: remained over and above).

[15] Ezekiel 34:14, 15 (NET)

[16] Luke 18:9-14 (NET)

[17] Compare: Matthew 9:9-13, Mark 2:14-17, Luke 5:27-32 (NET)

[18] Romans, Part 17

[19] Romans 9:16 (NET) Table

Study: Luke 4:18-19

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This is an Addendum to Romans, Part 45.

Now Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom.  He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him.  He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and the regaining of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”[1]

Originally I avoided this quotation because it wasn’t exactly the NET version of the Old Testament (Isaiah 61:1, 2 NET):

The spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me, because the Lord has chosen me.  He has commissioned me to encourage the poor, to help the brokenhearted, to decree the release of captives, and the freeing of prisoners, to announce the year when the Lord will show his favor…

Nor was it exactly the Septuagint:

Jesus (NET) Septuagint NET (Parallel Greek Text)
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. πνεῦμα κυρίου ἐπ᾽ ἐμέ οὗ εἵνεκεν ἔχρισέν με εὐαγγελίσασθαι πτωχοῖς ἀπέσταλκέν με πνεῦμα κυρίου ἐπ᾿ ἐμὲ οὗ εἵνεκεν ἔχρισεν με εὐαγγελίσασθαι πτωχοῖς,ἀπέσταλκεν με,
  ἰάσασθαι τοὺς συντετριμμένους τῇ καρδίᾳ
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and the regaining of sight to the blind, κηρύξαι αἰχμαλώτοις ἄφεσιν καὶ τυφλοῖς ἀνάβλεψιν

Isaiah 61:1

 κηρύξαι αἰχμαλώτοις ἄφεσιν καὶ τυφλοῖς ἀνάβλεψιν,
to set free those who are oppressed,

Luke 4:18 (NET)

 ἀποστεῖλαι τεθραυσμένους ἐν ἀφέσει,

Luke 4:18
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Luke 4:19 (NET)

 καλέσαι ἐνιαυτὸν κυρίου δεκτὸν…

Isaiah 61:2a

 κηρύξαι ἐνιαυτὸν κυρίου δεκτόν.

Luke 4:19

The first obvious difference: ἰάσασθαι τοὺς συντετριμμένους τῇ καρδίᾳ (he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted in the KJV) is missing from the Greek text of the NET.

The note in the NET reads: “The majority of mss, especially the later Byzantines, include the phrase ‘to heal the brokenhearted’ at this point (A Θ Ψ 0102 Ë1 Ï). The phrase is lacking in several weighty mss (א B D L W Ξ Ë13 33 579 700 892* pc lat sys co), including representatives from both the Alexandrian and Western text types. From the standpoint of external evidence, the omission of the phrase is more likely original. When internal evidence is considered, the shorter reading becomes almost certain. Scribes would be much more prone to add the phrase here to align the text with Isa 61:1, the source of the quotation, than to remove it from the original.”

The phrase was part of the received text (ἰὰσασθαι τοὺς συντετριμμένους τὴν καρδίαν) and included in the King James translation.  Whether it should or should not be included matters very little to me (since I have access to both and a footnote detailing the reason it was removed), though it would be interesting if Jesus deliberately deleted it from his own reading.

The brokenhearted (συντετριμμένους τῇ καρδίᾳ) hearkens back to David’s Miserere (Psalm 51:17 NET Table):

The sacrifices God desires are a humble spirit – O God, a humble and repentant heart you will not reject.

The humble heart (broken, KJV) is καρδίαν συντετριμμένην in the Septuagint.  Both συντετριμμένους and συντετριμμένην are forms of συντρίβω.  If Jesus deliberately deleted this phrase from his quotation, I would take it to mean He did not want his mission to be seen as limited to those who brought the correct sacrifices, the humble spirit, the humble and repentant heart.  In fact this is why we work hard and struggle, Paul wrote Timothy (1 Timothy 4:10 NET), because we have set our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all people (σωτὴρ πάντων ἀνθρώπων), especially of believers.  But this, too, only creates arguments about who might remove the phrase and why.

The next obvious difference is that ἀποστεῖλαι τεθραυσμένους ἐν ἀφέσει (to set free those who are oppressed) is not in the Septuagint.  I could accept that—to decree the release of captives, and the freeing of prisoners—may have seemed redundant to the Rabbis when translating Hebrew to Greek.

Finally, καὶ τυφλοῖς ἀνάβλεψιν (and the regaining of sight to the blind) is in Jesus’ quotation and the Septuagint but not in a contemporary translation of Hebrew.  The Greek word τυφλοῖς (a form of τυφλός) is blind in English.  When Moses complained that he was slow of speech and slow of tongue,[2] The Lord said to him, “Who gave a mouth to man, or who makes a person mute or deaf or seeing or blind (Septuagint: τυφλόν, another form of τυφλός)?  Is it not I, the Lord?”[3]  But in the law it was written (Leviticus 21:16-21 NET):

The Lord spoke to Moses: “Tell Aaron, ‘No man from your descendants throughout their generations who has a physical flaw is to approach to present the food of his God.  Certainly no man who has a physical flaw is to approach: a blind (Septuagint: τυφλὸς, another form of τυφλός) man, or one who is lame, or one with a slit nose, or a limb too long, or a man who has had a broken leg or arm, or a hunchback, or a dwarf, or one with a spot in his eye, or a festering eruption, or a feverish rash, or a crushed testicle.  No man from the descendants of Aaron the priest who has a physical flaw may step forward to present the Lord’s gifts; he has a physical flaw, so he must not step forward to present the food of his God.

But if you ignore the Lord your God and are not careful to keep all his commandments and statutes I am giving you today, then all these curses will come upon you in full force…[4]  One of those curses was to be like the blind: You will feel your way along at noon like the blind (Septuagint: τυφλὸς, another form of τυφλός) person does in darkness and you will not succeed in anything you do; you will be constantly oppressed and continually robbed, with no one to save you.[5]

Did the Masoretes remove and the regaining of sight to the blind because they didn’t wish to be associated with the blind?  But they left The Lord (yehôvâh; יהוה) gives sight to the blind (Septuagint: τυφλούς, another form of τυφλός).[6]  And, Look, your God (ʼĕlôhı̂ym; אלהיכם) comes to avenge!  With divine retribution he comes to deliver you.”  Then blind (Septuagint: τυφλῶν, another form of τυφλός) eyes will open…[7]

This, too, still remains: I, the Lord (yehôvâh; יהוה), officially commission you; I take hold of your hand.  I protect you and make you a covenant mediator for people, and a light to the nations, to open blind (Septuagint: τυφλῶν, another form of τυφλός) eyes, to release prisoners from dungeons, those who live in darkness from prisons.[8]  So was it removed simply because Jesus cured many people of diseases, sicknesses, and evil spirits, and granted sight to many who were blind[9] (τυφλοῖς, a form of τυφλός) and claimed to fulfill that prophecy in the synagogue in Nazareth?

Joseph Gleason, “a priest at Christ the King Orthodox Mission in Omaha, Illinois,” blogged:

For thousands of years, ancient Hebrew was only written with consonants, no vowels.  When reading these texts, they had to supply all of the vowels from memory, based on oral tradition.  In Hebrew, just like modern languages, vowels can make a big difference. The change of a single vowel can radically change the meaning of a word….The most extensive change the Masoretes brought to the Hebrew text was the addition of vowel points.  In an attempt to solidfy for all-time the “correct” readings of all the Hebrew Scriptures, the Masoretes added a series of dots to the text, identifying which vowel to use in any given location….

In the 2nd century A.D., hundreds of years before the time of the Masoretes, Justin Martyr investigated a number of Old Testament texts in various Jewish synagogues.  He ultimately concluded that the Jews who had rejected Christ had also rejected the Septuagint, and were now tampering with the Hebrew Scriptures themselves… If Justin Martyr’s findings are correct, then it is likely that the Masoretes inherited a Hebrew textual tradition which had already been corrupted with an anti-Christian bias…. Simply by choosing one Hebrew text over another, they were able to subvert the Incarnation, the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, His healing of the blind, His crucifixion, and His salvation of the Gentiles.  The Jewish scribes were able to edit Jesus out of many important passages, simply by rejecting one Hebrew text, and selecting (or editing) another text instead.

I would like to add, raised from infancy with the belief that Jesus was not, could not possibly be, the promised Messiah, and with no knowledge of deliberate textual corruptions, the Masoretes could have done this in good conscience.  Joseph Gleason concluded:

It would seem that the Septuagint (LXX) translation is…a more faithful representation of the original Hebrew Scriptures.  Perhaps that is why Jesus and the apostles frequently quoted from the Septuagint, and accorded it full authority as the inspired Word of God.

I’m not prepared to go that far.  I was happy to find a corrective to my own conclusion that Jesus and Paul were such inept scholars they couldn’t even quote a passage of Scripture accurately.  Clearly, the Septuagint I’m using was not what Jesus read in the synagogue in Nazareth.  But He wasn’t reading from the Masoretic text either.  Here is the comparison of the King James Version:

Jesus (KJV) KJV
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

Luke 4:18, 19 (KJV)

 The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD…

Isaiah 61:1, 2a

Jesus’ quotation is much more agreeable with Isaiah 61 in the KJV.  But if the “King James Version is the infallible Word of God” Jesus inserted and recovering of sight to the blind into the middle of his reading of Isaiah 61:1.  Luke didn’t record anyone disputing it with Him at the time (Luke 4:20-29 KJV):

And [Jesus] closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.
And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph’s son?
And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country.
And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country.
But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land;
But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow.
And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath,
And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.

Here is a comparison of the Septuagint and the Stephanus Textus Receptus:

Jesus (KJV) Septuagint Stephanus Textus Receptus 1550
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; πνεῦμα κυρίου ἐπ᾽ ἐμέ οὗ εἵνεκεν ἔχρισέν με εὐαγγελίσασθαι πτωχοῖς ἀπέσταλκέν με Πνεῦμα κυρίου ἐπ’ ἐμέ οὗ ἕνεκεν ἔχρισέν με εὐαγγελίζεσθαι πτωχοῖς ἀπέσταλκέν με
he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, ἰάσασθαι τοὺς συντετριμμένους τῇ καρδίᾳ ἰὰσασθαι τοὺς συντετριμμένους τὴν καρδίαν,
to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, κηρύξαι αἰχμαλώτοις ἄφεσιν καὶ τυφλοῖς ἀνάβλεψιν

Isaiah 61:1

 κηρύξαι αἰχμαλώτοις ἄφεσιν καὶ τυφλοῖς ἀνάβλεψιν
to set at liberty them that are bruised,

Luke 4:18 (KJV)

 ἀποστεῖλαι τεθραυσμένους ἐν ἀφέσει

Luke 4:18
To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

Luke 4:19 (KJV)

 καλέσαι ἐνιαυτὸν κυρίου δεκτὸν…

Isaiah 61:2a

 κηρύξαι ἐνιαυτὸν κυρίου δεκτόν

Luke 4:19

I notice that “the heart” in the Septuagint is τῇ καρδίᾳ and in the received text τὴν καρδίαν, but I don’t know enough Greek to make anything of it.  And I don’t understand why Origen or Eusebius would delete the phrase ἀποστεῖλαι τεθραυσμένους ἐν ἀφέσει in a deliberate forgery.

[1] Luke 4:16-19 (NET)

[2] Exodus 4:10b (NET)

[3] Exodus 4:11 (NET)

[4] Deuteronomy 28:15 (NET)

[5] Deuteronomy 28:29 (NET)

[6] Psalm 146:8a (NET)

[7] Isaiah 35:4b, 5a (NET)

[8] Isaiah 42:6, 7 (NET)

[9] Luke 7:21 (NET)

Jesus the Leg-breaker, Part 1

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“Jesus the leg-breaker” is a more persistent tale than I expected.  I decided not to give it short shrift.

I am the beautiful shepherd,[1] Jesus said.  Did He mean to turn my attention to Him or to human shepherds?  Do I know Him through the Bible?  Or should I study shepherd lore and apply it to Him?  In a blog titled “The Good Shepherd Breaks Their Legs,” Pastor Robin Weinstein quoted the following story from another blog:

According to the story, if a lamb has a tendency to wander off, the shepherd will actually break one of its legs. He then tends the broken leg – puts a splint on it and binds it up. Then while the leg is mending, he carries it on his shoulder. According to the anecdote, once the sheep heals, it will follow the shepherd, close at his side, the rest of its life. Never again go astray [because now it knows the voice and guidance of its shepherd].

“But, this story is not in the Bible, you say,” was the apparently grudging admission, followed by a Bible verse “that runs parallel” to the story.

How enviable is the man whom God corrects. Oh, do not despise the chastening of the Lord when you sin. For though he wounds, he binds and heals once again. Job 5:17,18

The reasoning here goes something like this: The word of God is true.  The Bible is the word of God.  Job 5:17 and 18 are in the Bible, so they are true and the word of God.  It is a compelling argument and does seem to correspond to the shepherd story.  But in the book of Job in the Bible these words are not the word of yehôvâh:  “How enviable is the man whom God corrects.  Oh, do not despise the chastening of the Lord when you sin.  For though he wounds, he binds and heals once again,” are the words of Eliphaz the Temanite.  In the book of Job yehôvâh spoke the following to Eliphaz the Temanite about Eliphaz’s words (Job 42:7 NET).

After the Lord (yehôvâh) had spoken (dâbar, דבר; Septuagint: λαλῆσαι) these things to Job, he (yehôvâh [added again for emphasis, I assume]) said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My anger is stirred up against you and your two friends, because you have not spoken (dâbar,  דברתם; Septuagint: ἐλαλήσατε) about me what is right, as my servant Job has.”

On my way back from atheism, as I essentially rejected the Gospel thinking of it as a second chance to do righteousness by obeying the Bible as rules, I met a man who wanted to produce the book of Job as a play.  I don’t remember now if he asked me to set it to music or if I had the competing idea to write it as an opera.  As I studied, intending to make the book of Job the libretto for an opera, I was perplexed by what fault God found with the words of Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite.

I could see that their empathy for Job might have been off a bit, but their words seemed more or less like the religious teaching I had heard my whole life.  Wishing that yehôvâh had been more specific, I abandoned the project.  Even now, given this lack of specificity, I am not wise enough to quote anything Eliphaz said as proof of anything in the light of yehôvâh’s anger (Job 42:8 NET):

So now take seven bulls and seven rams [yehôvâh, speaking to Eliphaz, continued] and go to my servant Job and offer a burnt offering for yourselves.  And my servant Job will intercede for you, and I will respect him, so that I do not deal with you according to your folly, because you have not spoken (dâbar,  דברתם; Septuagint: ἐλαλήσατε) about me what is right, as my servant Job has.

“God will chasten and correct us,” the writer of the original blog continued.  So far, so good: For whom the Lord loves He chastens (παιδεύει, a form of παιδεύω), And scourges (μαστιγοῖ, a form of μαστιγόω) every son whom He receives.[2]  But the writer of the original blog added, “if we stray.”  And that is probably the reason he quoted Eliphaz the Temanite from the book of Job rather than the writer of the book of Hebrews.  The writer of the book of Hebrews wasn’t writing to those who strayed but to those who were tempted to stray because of the opposition or contradiction, the ἀντιλογίαν (a form of ἀντιλογία; literally, “to speak against”) of sinners that they encountered while trusting Christ (Hebrews 12:5-7a NET):

And have you forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as sons?  “My son, do not scorn the Lord’s discipline (παιδείας, a form of παιδεία) or give up when he corrects you.  “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son he accepts.”  Endure your suffering as discipline (παιδείαν, a form of παιδεία) …

The faithful, as opposed to those who stray, are called to endure the ἀντιλογίαν of sinners as God’s παιδείαν (a form of παιδεία).  Currently in the U.S. this ἀντιλογίαν is mostly ridicule and rarely μαστιγόω as was common in the first century (and beyond).  But it is fairly clear that the faithful should perceive and receive the ἀντιλογίαν of sinners in whatever form as παιδείαν from God (Hebrews 12:7b, 8 NET):

God is treating you as sons.  For what son is there that a father does not discipline (παιδεύει, a form of παιδεύω)?  But if you do not experience discipline (παιδείας, another form of παιδεία), something all sons have shared in, then you are illegitimate and are not sons.

A comparison and contrast follow between earthly fathers and the Father of spirits which might be confusing if not treated carefully:

Comparison

Contrast
Besides, we have experienced discipline (παιδευτὰς, a form of παιδευτής) from our earthly fathers and we respected them; shall we not submit ourselves all the more to the Father of spirits and receive life?

Hebrews 12:9 (NET)

 For they [earthly fathers] disciplined (ἐπαίδευον, another form of παιδεύω) us for a little while as seemed good to them, but he [the Father of spirits] does so for our benefit, that we may share his holiness.

Hebrews 12:10 (NET)

If the παιδεία of one’s father consisted mostly of punishment for doing wrong it is easy to mistake punishment for the Father of spirits’ παιδεία.  But the παιδεία of the Father of spirits comes at the mouth (and possibly at the hands) of sinners for doing right rather than wrong.  The writer of the book of Hebrews continued (Hebrews 12:11-13 NET):

Now all discipline (παιδεία) [whether for doing wrong or for doing right] seems painful at the time, not joyful. But later it [the παιδεία from the Father of spirits for doing right] produces the fruit of peace and righteousness for those trained by it.  Therefore, strengthen your listless hands and your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but be healed.

This is the experience of the faithful, not the unfaithful, and not a word about breaking legs.  But Deacon Del Gibbs, the original blogger, wrote:

God will chasten and correct us if we stray. You say yep, I could write the book? Been there, done that?  But it is for our good. And trust me, the pain is better than the alternative – becoming lamb chops on Satan’s dinner table. 

Is this his personal experience of Jesus?

No.  He never strayed.  “You see,” he wrote, “I had not been saved out of sin but God saved me from going into it.”  In Romans 1 people who did not glorify…God or give him thanks, who exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles, were given over by God in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonor their bodies among themselves.[3]  The implication here is that apart from this God would keep them from this sin.

People who exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator, were given over by God to dishonorable passions.[4]  Again the implication is that apart from this God would keep them from this sin.  Likewise people who did not see fit to acknowledge God, were given over by God to a depraved mind, to do what should not be done.[5]  Once again the implication is that apart from this God would keep them from these sins.  Mr. Gibbs continued:

I can testify of God’s strength that helps me live victoriously.  Of his patience and forgiveness for the times I’m slow to catch on.  And when I stub my toe and fall on my face, I can tell how He reaches out and helps me to my feet once again.

That sounds so much better to me as something to say to one who has strayed than threats about Jesus the leg-breaker.  You see, I have strayed.  You might say I went looking for the smiting, leg-breaking Jesus I was taught about, at least I dared Him to act.  And I became an atheist when He refused to live up to his bad press.

The good thing about becoming an atheist, however, is that I couldn’t blame God for my problems any more.  They were definitely my problems, brought about by the sins that I thought were my freedom, even my right, the very things Paul called the wrath of God…revealed from heaven,[6] the things I couldn’t quit even after I began to want to quit them.

The kicker here is that Mr. Gibbs’ father, raised on a sheep ranch in Montana, couldn’t even confirm the alleged shepherd lore: “My Dad says he didn’t do it,” his blog post began.  “He just got out the 22, and that night they had mutton stew.”  The reasoning here goes something like this: Jesus the leg-breaker would be better than Del’s father the killer and eater.

But that unmasks the whole thing, doesn’t it?  Why does a human shepherd care for the flock at all?  Is it not so the flock is available to be fleeced, milked and eaten?  Is that what Jesus meant when He called Himself the beautiful shepherd?  Is this, too, part of the shepherd lore I should apply to Him?  Jesus said:

Matthew

Luke
What do you think?  If someone owns a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go look for the one that went astray?

Matthew 18:12 (NET)

 So Jesus told them this parable: “Which one of you, if he has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, would not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go look for the one that is lost until he finds it?

Luke 15:3, 4 (NET)

Frankly, I think I might write-off the one who strayed rather than risk the others.  But then, I’m not a shepherd.  I don’t really know the value of a sheep.  (And  I’m not omnipresent.)  So I must take Jesus at his word here.

Matthew

Luke
And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he will rejoice more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray.

 Matthew 18:13 (NET)

 “Then when he has found it, he places it on his shoulders, rejoicing.  Returning home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, telling them, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found my sheep that was lost.’

Luke 15:5, 6 (NET)

Again, I have no direct way to corroborate this, but must take Jesus at his word.

Matthew

Luke
In the same way, your Father in heaven is not willing that one of these little ones be lost.

 Matthew 18:14 (NET)

 “I tell you, in the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need to repent.”

Luke 15:7 (NET)

This is clearly beyond my experience.   I haven’t amounted to much, nothing that would cause anyone to say, “Ah, I understand why Jesus went out of his way to save him.”  But He did.  As far as I’m concerned, the only plausible explanation is to take Jesus at his word: your Father in heaven is not willing (θέλημα) that one of these little ones be lost.

[1] John 10:11 (NET)

[2] Hebrews 12:6 (KJV, DNT)

[3] Romans 1:21-24 (NET)

[4] Romans 1:25, 26a (NET)

[5] Romans 1:28 (NET)

[6] Romans 1:18a (NET)

My Reasons and My Reason, Part 7

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I am persuaded that the primary meaning of πορνεία in the New Testament refers to ancient idolatrous worship practices.  It can be stretched to mean adultery in general (1 Thessalonians 4:3-7 NET Table):

For this is God’s will: that you become holy, that you keep away from πορνείας (a form of πορνεία), that each of you know how to possess his own body in holiness and honor, not in lustful passion like the Gentiles who do not know God.  In this matter no one should violate the rights of his brother or take advantage of him, because the Lord is the avenger in all these cases, as we also told you earlier and warned you solemnly.  For God did not call us to impurity (ἀκαθαρσία) but in holiness.

At least I hope Paul meant that one should not violate the rights of his brother by committing adultery with his wife, rather than that he should simply pass by her at a cultic festival (though I admit that ἀκαθαρσία sounds a lot like demonic worship here).  Paul may have used πορνεία to mean the list of sins found in Leviticus 18:6-23 (1 Corinthians 5:1 NET):

It is actually reported that πορνεία exists among you, the kind of πορνεία that is not permitted even among the Gentiles, so that someone is cohabiting with (ἔχειν, a form of ἔχω) his father’s wife.

If the man’s father was alive this is simply another instance where Paul used πορνεία for adultery.  (Remember πορνεία was almost the only word Paul had for sin as long as he accepted the gutting of the law at the Jerusalem Council.)  If the man’s father was dead πορνεία meant: You must not have sexual intercourse with your father’s wife; she is your father’s nakedness[1] or, A man may not marry his father’s former wife and in this way dishonor his father.[2]

In contemporary Greek πορνεία translates as prostitution in the headline Παιδική πορνεία.  If I select “Translate this Page” Παιδική πορνεία is rendered “Child prostitution.”

The one thing I am persuaded now that πορνεία does not mean in the New Testament is what two teenagers might do in the backseat of a Chevy on a Friday night.  They are not committing πορνεία but marriage by performing the only wedding ceremony yehôvâh ʼĕlôhı̂ym ever created, authorized or honored: If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged and has sexual relations with her, he must surely endow her to be his wife.  If her father refuses to give her to him, he must pay money for the bride price of virgins.[3]

When I was young it angered me that God gave such undue authority to an autocratic father.  Now that I know Him better and have lived with, and loved, a daughter, though the autocratic father may always be a possible type, I think the point was to give that authority to the one most attuned to his daughter’s heart on the matter in an uncomfortable social situation.  One reason for rejecting this law is the embarrassment a contemporary person feels over its companion legislation (Deuteronomy 22:28, 29 NET):

Suppose a man comes across a virgin who is not engaged and overpowers and rapes her and they are discovered [Table].  The man who has raped her must pay her father fifty shekels of silver and she must become his wife because he has violated her; he may never divorce her as long as he lives [Table].

A scene in the movie “Fury” cast this legislation in a different light.  In April 1945, days from the end of the war in Europe, First Sergeant Collier—Wardaddy—an American tank commander, spies a woman peeking down at them from an upstairs window in the German town they have just conquered.  Wardaddy calls to Norman, Private Ellison, and the two men, armed with machine guns, head inside and up the stairs.  I have every reason to assume that Wardaddy is continuing Norman’s indoctrination into the ways of war.

Norman, a clerk trained to type 60 words per minute, was assigned to Wardaddy’s tank crew as a replacement assistant driver.  His failure and refusal to pull the trigger endangers the rest of his crew and everyone around him.  Wardaddy has already forced him to kill a German prisoner in a macabre hand-over-hand imitation of a mother teaching a child to form letters with a crayon.  I can only imagine what new lesson Wardaddy has in store for him, though the two German women have no illusions that they are anything to their armed invaders but spoils of war.

Wardaddy puts down his weapon, and tells Norman to do likewise, once he has determined that the two women are the only occupants of the apartment.  It’s a clear sign to the women, beautiful young Emma and her older cousin, that they may survive their ordeal if they comply with Wardaddy’s wishes.

Wardaddy wishes to wash with hot water, shave and eat a fried egg.  Norman plays a piece of sheet music at the piano.  Emma, delighted, sings the song and turns the page for him.  She stops when she notices the scars on Wardaddy’s back.

“She’s a good clean girl,” Wardaddy says to Norman.  “If you don’t take her in that bedroom, I will.”

Emma doesn’t need a translator to know what’s expected of her.  Given the opportunity to choose her rapist, she leads her young accompanist into the bedroom.  Norman retrieves his machine gun on the way.  Emma’s older cousin attempts to follow them, whether to intervene or to serve as a substitute is unclear.  Wardaddy stops her with a gesture and a word in German:

“No.  They’re young and they’re alive.”

As a rapist Norman is patient and gentle as a lover.  He and Emma, representing the human beings least degraded by war, exit that bedroom as husband and wife.  They know it.  Wardaddy knows it.  And so does Emma’s older cousin.  As they sit down to a wedding feast of fried eggs the rest of his tank crew—Coon-Ass, Gordo and Bible—knock at the door, calling for Norman.

Coon-Ass and Gordo have cajoled or coerced a “whore” to “entertain” them, and others, one at a time in the tank downstairs.  They have come to share her with Norman.  I get the impression that if Norman were not already married to Emma, Coon-Ass and Gordo would make it very difficult for him to refuse his share.  But seeing Emma, Coon-Ass in particular, representing the man most degraded by war, wants his share of her.  Now, however, even Coon-Ass isn’t likely to take her without Norman’s acquiescence.

“Don’t touch her!” Norman says with the all the force of a petulant child.

“Anyone touches the girl,” Wardaddy says, putting not only his rank but his personal power and authority on the line, “they get their teeth kicked in.”

Coon-Ass and Gordo are deeply hurt.  Even Bible, though apparently powerful enough in the pecking order to abstain from the women without suffering personal repercussions, is hurt to have been excluded from the wedding feast.  They remind Wardaddy that they have been together, brothers in arms, since the Normandy invasion.  Norman has not.

I suspect that Wardaddy would not have denied his brothers, Coon-Ass and Gordo, if they had gotten to Emma first.  He, as degraded by war as any of them, could not risk his rank, personal power or authority except for Norman’s or, if necessary, his own new bride.

And for those who think it might have been a better film, or Emma might have been a better woman, if she had fought to the death to defend her honor, a stray shell kills her in the next scene.  Norman grieves like a widower, though duty calls and limits his opportunity to do her justice.

If one or both of the teenagers in the Chevy come back Saturday night to perform the same ceremony with different partners, they would be guilty of adultery as long as the other lives.  The point was never to make adultery—or divorce, for that matter—the unpardonable sin.  The point was to get religious people to acknowledge that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  But they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.[4]

Other reasons for rejecting the view of marriage described in the law are 1) that a daughter who acted so precipitously may have robbed her father of a better bride price.  Or, 2) in more contemporary terms she may rob herself of a more lucrative match.  And 3) governing bodies, both secular and religious, want to regulate marriage.

Do they have that right (Matthew 16:19; 18:18 NKJV)?

And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

This certainly sounds like Peter and James had the authority to gut the law.  Were they the only ones?  In the United States of America a woman is free to couple or uncouple as she pleases because she is “endowed by [her] Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…”[5]  I often wonder why the lawyers, legal historians, philosophers and ministers who signed the Declaration of Independence didn’t forsee that the pursuit of personal happiness would come to dominate and define both life and liberty.

I’ve been taught to think like John Miller in his March 7, 2015 response to comments and an essay on happiness on blog.dictionary.com:

Everyone here really doesn’t understand the colonial meaning of the phrase.  Pursuit of happiness referred to the pursuit of holiness or godliness.  It had nothing to do with personal pleasures.  Our founders understood that morality and religion were required for a republic to succeed and in those times when someone pursued happiness it was a pursuit of that which is godly.  Sadly, that’s something very few Americans do these days and will be the source of our nation’s demise.

But the Declaration of Independence did not say “that all men are…endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are” the pursuit of Christ and his righteousness.  It said, “pursuit of Happiness.”  And I think I can say on the authority of Scripture and a bare knowledge of American history that “the pursuit of Christ and his righteousness” would never have gained consensus.

That, I think, is what I witness in both the Jerusalem Council and the Declaration of Independence.  They are prime examples of the achievements of committee work and consensus building.  They happened.  They are there for all to see.  I don’t believe these particular results of either exercise.  They are not my faith.  I think what Jesus meant was that those who trust Him would be led by his Holy Spirit (Matthew 16:19; 18:18 NET):

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.  Whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you release on earth will have been released in heaven.

I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you release on earth will have been released in heaven.

One of the ways to know what has been bound and released in heaven is to know God’s law, not because one is declared righteous before him by the works of the law but because the law discloses what displeases Him: through the law comes the knowledge of sin.[6]

I should clarify my thoughts on happiness: I had my ticket home.  I was ready to go.  I would have been happy to sit and watch my daughter’s graduation ceremony from college.  But my twenty-three-year-old daughter had a stroke before I arrived.  Then I was happy to sit and watch as she chewed food and swallowed without choking on it.

I am grateful for happiness.  I think it is essential to the ongoing occupation of living here and now.  But I don’t have a clue how to pursue it.  When I’ve tried, the people, achievements, occupations and possessions I thought would make me happy, did not, not any more or any less than the normal ebb and flow of when I had not pursued happiness.  I will pursue Christ and his righteousness instead.

And to the wag who may say I only do that because it makes me happy, I can honestly answer, not always, my friend, at times it is a sad or a painful thing to do.  Still, it has its moments.

[1] Leviticus 18:8 (NET) Table

[2] Deuteronomy 22:30 (NET)

[3] Exodus 22:16, 17 (NET)

[4] Romans 3:23, 24 (NET)

[5] Declaration of Independence

[6] Romans 3:20 (NET)